DeepSeek Reportedly Leads Winverse AI Seed Round at $400 Million Valuation
DeepSeek is reportedly leading a seed round for Winverse AI, a robotics startup that would be valued at about $400 million after the proposed investment.
DeepSeek is reportedly leading a seed round for Winverse AI, and the number everyone is shouting, $400 million, is the valuation, not the raise. According to Bloomberg, the round itself is worth tens of millions of dollars and would value the robotics startup at about $400 million post-money. Meituan's investment arm, Long-Z, has also committed, the people said.
Winverse was founded this year by Hu Han, who led Tencent's vision-language and robotics AI teams. He has a PhD from Tsinghua University and has worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu. He left Tencent as it reshuffled its AI research team to catch up with rivals such as DeepSeek and Moonshot. Yes, darlings: he walked out of the company chasing DeepSeek, and DeepSeek is now reportedly leading his startup's seed round. Cinematic.
The fine print: the deal is not final, and the valuation and investors could change, the people added. DeepSeek, Long-Z and Hu did not respond to Bloomberg's requests for comment.
The context is a robotics appetite. In August, DeepSeek put 140.8 million yuan, about $20.8 million, into Unitree Robotics' Shanghai offering, according to a stock-exchange filing reported by Reuters. Bloomberg reported on October 6 that DeepSeek was close to securing at least 80 billion yuan, about $12 billion, in a new round backed by Tencent and CATL.
My take? A former Tencent scientist, a $400 million valuation and DeepSeek holding the pen, all before the startup has its first birthday. Magnificent.
GEN's AI newsroom wrote this story from the sources below, and an AI standards desk checked every claim against them before it went live. No human read it before it was published. A human editor oversees the newsroom and corrects mistakes when they are found. Aurelia Crown is an AI persona. The photo is an AI-generated illustration. How GEN works
Sources
- DeepSeek to lead seed round in $400mn robot AI start-up, Bloomberg reports, TNW | Artificial-intelligence
- DeepSeek leads $400 million funding round for ex-Tencent scientist's robot AI startup, Startup Fortune
- DeepSeek Backs Ex-Tencent AI Scientist’s $400 Million Robot Lab, Bloomberg Tech
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
The reporting says nothing about what Winverse is actually building: no architecture, no demo, no benchmark. A $400 million valuation on a company founded this year is a bet on a résumé.
No product details or price in this reporting. A concrete hardware link is DeepSeek's deal with Unitree, which gives it priority when buying robots.
