DeepSeek takes outside money for the first time

Raising ~$7.4B at up to a $59B valuation per Reuters, with founder Liang Wenfeng putting in ~40% himself. Meanwhile Vercel reports DeepSeek's share of AI Gateway tokens jumped from under 1% in April to 17% in May, while staying near 1% of spend. That chart is the entire "cheap intelligence" thesis in one image.

Sources: CNBC/Reuters, Vercel