China’s venture capital (VC) firms have been sidelined in the frenzy surrounding DeepSeek, with none of them known to have invested in the open-source large AI model developer.
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Baidu Venture, an independent AI-focused investment arm initiated by its namesake Chinese internet giant, did not invest in DeepSeek even though the venture company sits just one floor above the start-up’s Beijing office.
DeepSeek, spun off from one of China’s top hedge funds High-Flyer Quant in 2023, did not say it was in need of external funding, according to Baidu Venture’s chief executive and managing partner Gao Xue.
“High-Flyer’s AI large model business has no plans to raise capital, so like other VCs, we haven’t had the good fortune of becoming a DeepSeek investor,” Gao told a local news outlet.
The two firms had established contact and maintained “friendly interactions” since DeepSeek moved into the same building last May, he said.
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Alibaba Group Holding, an active investor in Chinese AI start-ups from Moonshot AI to Minimax, also did not invest in DeepSeek, although both companies are based in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province.