Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek has reportedly closed its first external funding round, using an unusual structure in which the company’s founder and chief executive, Liang Wenfeng, will retain significant control over the firm.

The start-up now has a post-investment value of about 400 billion yuan ($59bn, £44.7bn) after raising around 50bn yuan in the Series A round, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an unnamed person.

The valuation is higher than those of other Chinese start-ups such as Moonshot AI, at $30bn (£22.7bn), or Hong Kong-listed MiniMax AI, valued at around $17.7bn, but is lower than Zhipu AI, whose Hong Kong-listed shares are worth about $93bn.

Liang funded the round with about 20bn yuan of his personal fortune, making up nearly half the total, the Post report said, in an unusual arrangement.

This gives Liang significant control over the company, so that he can keep it aligned with his desired focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI), or creating AI that equals or surpasses human intelligence.

Liang reinforced this at a meeting with investors last month, at which he said what “DeepSeek wants to do is anything relevant to enhance the intelligence” of AI models, and is not interested in anything else, the Post report said.

Tencent and CATL reportedly contributed 10bn yuan and 5bn yuan respectively, making them the largest outside backers, while NetEase and JD.com each contributed 3bn yuan.

China’s National Artificial Intelligence Investment Fund (NAIIF), a joint venture between state-backed Guozhi Investment (Shanghai) Private Equity Fund Management and state investment vehicle Big Fund Phase III, reportedly contributed nearly 1bn yuan.

The Post cited a Beijing-based investor as saying that none of the investors were expected to have seats on the company board, and that the investments would be subject to a five-year lock-up period intended to discourage them from seeking short-term profits.

However, The Information reported that the NAIIF was an exception, being given both voting rights and freedom from the lock-up.

DeepSeek came to prominence early last year for high-powered, low-cost open source models and has retained a focus on technical innovation over profit-seeking.

The company, initially funded by Liang’s High-Flyer Quant hedge fund, is understood to have sought external funding to establish a valuation benchmark as a means of retaining staff, amid aggressive poaching by competitors.