
TechCrunch: DeepSeek reportedly raises $15B days after US restrictions
DeepSeek has reportedly raised $15 billion in one of China's largest funding rounds, just days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove its technology over national security concerns.
A Chinese AI lab has raised approximately $15 billion in funding, one of the largest funding rounds in the country, just two days after the U.S. ordered federal civilian agencies to remove its AI technology from their systems over security concerns. The company is ramping up spending on AI infrastructure and open models for domestic and international markets despite facing U.S. restrictions. This funding round reflects a broader pattern of investors pouring billions into AI companies globally, including in China, as part of competition in the global AI race. The lab was founded in 2023 and gained global attention in early 2025 with its free-to-use, open-weight reasoning model that challenged the dominance of U.S. AI companies.
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OpenAI is acquiring Orchestra Bio to bring AI-powered operations to life sciences R&D, helping biopharma teams accelerate drug development and advance new treatments.
Also reported by TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE and The Decoder

Meeting note-taking tool Otter.ai announced on Tuesday that it has raised $320 million from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF), which provides capital to startups without diluting equity and gets returns on the results of marketing spend. Otter.ai said that it will use these funds for enterprise growth, go-to-market strategy, international expansion, and product innovation. […]
Also reported by SiliconANGLE

Meta says it's issuing a new class of shares to fund its AI initiatives. As part of its third-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday, the company says the non-voting stock will also go toward potential acquisitions and employee compensation, with trading beginning in 2027. "The scale of investment required to compete, sustain growth, expand infrastructure, and pursue new strategic initiatives amidst the AI transformation taking place in the industry is significant," Meta
Also reported by TechCrunch
Town.com Inc., an artificial intelligence agent startup laser focused on getting work done by collaborating with other AI agents, revealed today that it has raised $108 million in a new funding at a $1 billion valuation. The Series B round was led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures, and saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Serena […] The post AI work assistant startup Town secures unicorn status after raising $108M just weeks after launching appeared first on SiliconANGLE.

In August, Nscale and Anthropic announced a $45 billion compute deal. The two companies are reportedly discussing yet another deal of the same magnitude.
Artificial intelligence research lab Flapping Airplanes Inc. today announced it has raised $1 billion in new funding, about a year after it was founded. Investors valued the startup at $6 billion in the deal, Bloomberg reported. No commercial product has come out of the lab yet. Flapping Airplanes is trying to build AI models that […] The post Year-old AI research lab Flapping Airplanes raises $1B at a reported $6B valuation appeared first on SiliconANGLE.