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Startups & Venture·July 18, 2026·1 min read

Sources: China's National AI Industry Investment Fund gained voting rights in DeepSeek by joining its $7.4B round; other investors like Tencent and JD got none

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A $7.4B round where the state fund gets voting rights and major corporates do not underlines how national AI champions are becoming quasi-public infrastructure. If you depend on Chinese foundation models, model governance and export posture will be set as much in Beijing as in the boardroom.

Startups & Venture

Sources: AI inference chip startup Etched is raising funds at a ~$20B valuation and is raising capital at a $10B valuation in a separate round led by Sequoia

A single-purpose AI inference chip company being priced between $10B and ~$20B this early says the market is betting that verticalized silicon will be a profit pool, not just a feature. If you’re building AI products, you now have to assume the hardware layer will fragment — lock in optionality across at least two inference vendors.