Sept 24 (Reuters) - Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's annualised revenue run rate has hit $1 billion, more than double from a few months ago, the Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Run-rate revenue shows how much a company would make in a year if it continued performing at its current pace.
The figure underscores the rapid growth of the AI company that shook the tech industry last year after its models challenged US assumptions about China's AI capabilities. The company is planning to go public soon to fund its expansion.
CEO Liang Wenfeng shared the latest revenue figure at a recent meeting with investors, as the company pushes ahead with a second funding round targeting 50 billion yuan ($7.45 billion) at a valuation of 500 billion yuan by the end of October, the Information reported. DeepSeek is also preparing for a potential listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, it added.
DeepSeek's revenue growth was partly driven by raising model pricing by 2.3 to 4.5 times, the news outlet said.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. DeepSeek could not be immediately reached for comment.
DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a potential STAR Market IPO, though the timing, valuation and fundraising size remain undecided, Reuters reported this month.
The AI firm continues to devote the bulk of its resources to developing new models, allocating more than 70% of its computing capacity to training while reserving less than 30% for inference, or running existing models, Liang told investors, the Information added.
Earlier this month, the company released its latest model, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, and said it is designed for greater capability, faster inference, higher throughput and scaling to larger models.
($1 = 6.7131 Chinese yuan renminbi)
($1 = 6.7113 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Reporting by Abu Sultan in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair
Source: Reuters