DeepSeek

Founded in Hangzhou on July 17, 2023, by Liang Wenfeng and backed by High-Flyer, DeepSeek develops open-weight large language models and operates the DeepSeek web and mobile chatbot. In June 2026, deepseek.com recorded 318.8 million monthly visits—a 3.10% share of the top 74 AI tools—growing +15.4% compared to February 2026. DeepSeek also reached 130 million monthly active app users in China as of May 2026 according to QuestMobile data cited by Exploding Topics. Following the global impact of DeepSeek-R1 in January 2025, the lab released its 1.6-trillion-parameter DeepSeek-V4-Pro and 284-billion-parameter DeepSeek-V4-Flash models under the MIT License in 2026, followed by the natively multimodal DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash in September 2026. In May 2026, DeepSeek also completed a $7 billion Series A funding round at a $52 billion post-money valuation and began preparing for a potential public listing.