(Yicai) April 28 -- Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence has hiked its registered capital by 50 percent to CNY15 million (USD2.2 million) and the entire increase of CNY5 million was funded by the Chinese artificial intelligence startup’s founder, according to the latest data.

After the capital injection, Liang Wenfeng’s registered capital has risen to CNY5.1 million (USD746 million) from CNY100,000 (USD14,644) and his shareholding ratio has jumped to 34 percent from 1 percent, corporate data platform Tianyancha said today.

However, as the company’s actual controller, Liang’s effective ownership now stands at 84.3 percent. Meanwhile, Ningbo Cheng’en Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership Enterprise's stake in DeepSeek has been diluted to 66 percent from 99 percent.

DeepSeek is looking to raise no less than USD300 million at a valuation of over USD10 billion (CNY68.2 billion), The Information reported on April 17.

Tech giants Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are in talks to invest in DeepSeek, The Information also reported last week, citing four sources familiar with the matter. The target valuation for this funding round has reportedly been raised from USD10 billion to over USD20 billion, and the financing scale may also increase accordingly,

DeepSeek has yet to publicly comment on the matter.

Founded by Liang, who also set up hedge fund High-Flyer‌ Quant, Hangzhou-based DeepSeek has avoided external funding for many years and relied on profits from its parent company to sustain operations.

With AI model training costs continuing to rise, competition intensifying and some key researchers departing for rivals such as ByteDance and Xiaomi, Liang’s long-standing aversion to fundraising may start to waver.

Editor: Kim Taylor