Until recently, DeepSeek were self-financed (it was a spin-out from a hedge fund). They just raised ~50million RMB (US$7bn), and according to media [0] (which admittedly can be unreliable), the lead investors were:

1) The CEO himself 2) Tencent 3) CALT (the battery company) 4) NetEase (internet/media company) 5) JD.com (ecommerce) 6) Chinese investment firms

What are they expecting in return? I'd say the same thing that all those investors in OpenAI and Anthropic are expecting - profit.

[0] https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/vcpe/2026-06-11/doc-iniazi...