DeepSeek funding made headlines this week for its timing. Two days after the Department of Homeland Security ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek products from their systems, TechCrunch reported, citing Bloomberg, that the Chinese AI lab had reportedly raised about $15 billion. DeepSeek has not confirmed the figure. The two events are related by timing, not by any stated cause, and the reported raise may have been arranged well before the order.
This piece separates what is documented in the order from what is reported about the DeepSeek funding. The order is a public record. The money is a report.
What the DHS order says
The order was published in the Federal Register on October 20 and made public a day earlier. It was issued under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 and signed by James Percival, DHS general counsel. According to the notice, it follows a review of a recommendation from the Federal Acquisition Security Council, though the notice does not describe the evidence behind that recommendation.
Start with who and what it covers. Federal civilian agencies may no longer buy information technology products or services from Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co. or its affiliates, and they have to pull “all DeepSeek and DeepSeek-affiliate products” out of their systems. The clause that stands out is the last one, which reaches “third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations.”
The notice’s title sets the boundary: federal civilian executive branch systems and purchases. We found nothing in the text that turns it into a general ban for companies or consumers. The signed order itself is attached as images, which means we could not read the compliance deadlines or any waiver process. For those details we lean on TechCrunch, which reports that agencies can ask for exceptions, and that DHS worried sensitive data from US government users could be reachable by Chinese authorities under Chinese law.
The notice lists the order under docket DHS-2026-0628 and names a FASCSA order implementation team at CISA, the federal cyber agency, as the contact for agencies with questions. Anyone who wants the exact wording can find the signed order in that docket on regulations.gov.
TechCrunch also notes an earlier step. A law passed in December 2025 restricted DeepSeek in intelligence and national security systems, so the new order widens the same approach to civilian agencies.
China’s response came quickly. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing opposes “overstretching the concept of national security” and said China would defend the rights of its companies.
What the reported DeepSeek funding round looks like
According to TechCrunch’s summary of the Bloomberg report, DeepSeek raised about $15 billion, or roughly 100 billion yuan. Potential investors include the battery maker CATL and the internet company Tencent, among others. TechCrunch says DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the article does not confirm the amount, the investors, or whether the round has closed.
That is a big jump. TechCrunch, citing Reuters, says DeepSeek raised more than $7 billion in June at a $50 billion valuation. It also notes a July report that the company was seeking $1.5 billion at a valuation near $71 billion, along with talk of a possible China stock market listing as early as next year. Those July figures were reports, and they do not line up neatly with a $15 billion round, so the valuation behind the new money is unknown.
The DeepSeek funding report reaches us through a chain: Bloomberg reported it, TechCrunch summarized it, and we are relaying TechCrunch. None of those links is DeepSeek itself. Until the company or an investor confirms the numbers, treat the $15 billion as a figure that may change.
Ownership is easier to pin down. Founder Liang Wenfeng holds about 81.6% of the Chinese operating company, according to a WireScreen analysis that TechCrunch cites. He also co-founded the hedge fund High-Flyer, which helped pay for DeepSeek’s early work. DeepSeek is based in Hangzhou and was founded in 2023.
Why the DeepSeek funding timing matters
It is tempting to read the raise as proof that US restrictions are not slowing DeepSeek. The evidence does not get us there. Large rounds generally take time to arrange, and the report says nothing about when talks began or when any money moved. What we have is the order of two headlines, and that is all.
A narrower reading is more defensible. The DHS order governs what US civilian agencies can buy and run. As published, it sets no limits on who may invest in DeepSeek, so it would not be expected to change a Chinese funding round on its own.
The pressure on DeepSeek comes from other places too. TechCrunch notes a September report accusing DeepSeek and five other Chinese AI companies of large-scale distillation, a technique for copying the behavior of other AI models, and says OpenAI and Anthropic have raised similar concerns. For another recent open-model release, see our coverage of Meta’s Muse Spark open license. Together, these items make DeepSeek’s position in the US more of a policy question than a market one.
What businesses should check
For companies that sell to federal agencies, the third-party language is the part to read twice. The order reaches products “developed using DeepSeek implementations,” not only DeepSeek’s own apps. A vendor that built a feature on DeepSeek’s open models could be affected. Ask suppliers which models sit behind their tools, and whether any came from DeepSeek. Keep the answer in writing, because it may matter if a federal customer asks about the supply chain behind your product, or if the next round of DeepSeek funding news brings more scrutiny.
Companies with no federal work face no new legal duty from this order, as far as the notice shows. Their risk is different: customers and partners who sell to government could start asking the same questions. Rules on AI vendors are also moving in Europe, which we covered in our report on the EU AI Act and OpenAI and Anthropic.
Editor’s take
The headline pairing is tempting, and the two facts do not prove each other. What the DHS order and the reported DeepSeek funding round actually show is two separate tracks that no longer meet. Washington is cutting DeepSeek out of its own systems. Investors in China, if the report holds, are putting in far more money than they did in June. We would wait for DeepSeek or its investors to confirm the round, and read the full signed order, before drawing a larger conclusion.
