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DeepSeek rejects investors, seeks to control its own destiny

Author

Alex Wilhelm
March 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Top News

  • DeepSeek dodges capital: With breakout AI companies willing and able to raise tectonic sums on the double, one name has been surprisingly absent from the capital roster. DeepSeek boss Liang Wenfeng — who is also a co-founder of the AI company’s parent hedge fund — is reportedly not interested in taking external funds. Why? The Journal writes that Wenfeng is concerned “that outsiders would interfere in DeepSeek’s decisions.” Well, yes, that’s how it works with equity capital and boards and the like. He has a point. That said, imagine the disappointment of investors hungry to get a piece of this massive hit and being told ‘no thanks!’

  • The tech rout deepens: Shares of previously high-flying technology companies took more lumps today, with the entire Mag7 losing ground during regular trading. Nvidia dropped 5%, Tesla 15%, Alphabet 4%, and Microsoft more than 3%. Apple lost nearly 5% to boot. Concerns about a slowing economy, not to mention trade wars (and hot wars!), aren’t helping investor confidence. And after a pretty steep run-up thanks to AI, it appears that the market is content to pull back for the time being.

  • Manus draws attention, doubt: The most viral agentic tool out lately comes from Manus. TechCrunch reports that the service has received rapt reviews from AI folks, excited by what Manus calls “the first general AI agent.” But since Manus took off, folks have endeavored to learn more about what’s under its hood. Manus is, it appears, a collection of tuned off-the-shelf digital components. Does that undercut what Manus has built? No, but rough edges on the product might.

TWiST500

So much for a slow start to the week! Today we’re looking at a critical news story for not one, but two different TWiST500 companies: CoreWeave and OpenAI.

The gist is that OpenAI has struck a five year deal with CoreWeave worth some $11.9 billion. The deal is so large, it could single-handedly help CoreWeave debut, and when it does, OpenAI could profit from the transaction. Reuters reports:

“The deal will give OpenAI a stake in CoreWeave, which will issue shares worth $350 million through a private placement at the time of its initial public offering [though] CoreWeave will not receive any IPO proceeds as part of the share issue to OpenAI.”

For CoreWeave the deal not only adds a huge chunk of stable revenue to its future results, it also de-risks it from the chance of losing Microsoft as a keystone customer. Of course, if OpenAI is buying its own compute apart from Microsoft, so there’s a story there as well. (Microsoft has backed OpenAI with billions of dollars and has partnered on both compute and AI with the smaller company over time.) But what matters is that OpenAI appears to have all the compute it needs for the future, and CoreWeave can now list without too much worry. Onward! — Alex


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This Week in Startups

E2094: On a special futurist edition of TWiST, Alex welcomes not one but TWO insightful guests. FIRST UP, Zap Energy CEO Benj Conway tells him about the promising future of fusion power technology. THEN, Alex is joined by PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić for a deep dive on how AI will soon revolutionize customer service via ultra-realistic human-like voice assistants.

E2093: Jason and Alex cover CoreWeave’s filing for a $35 billion IPO after explosive revenue growth. But with 77% of its revenue coming from just two customers, is it built to last? Meanwhile, AVRide is bringing autonomous Hyundai robotaxis to Uber in Dallas, pushing the self-driving revolution forward as Waymo scales to 200,000 weekly rides. And finally, Digg is back!

E2092: Jason and Alex are back on an all new This Week in Startups, talking about a US Crypto Reserve. Do we need one? How is this going to work? Should we fund it with a Crypto Tax? One that’s out of the way, there’s still time to talk Ramp’s big raise, Jason’s ETF pitch, a potential CoreWeave IPO, PLUS a brand new Founder Hack.

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Angel University

Angel University is back! Jason and Mike, President at LAUNCH, are hosting our next live Angel.University workshop in person on Wednesday, April 23rd, in NYC. Jason will be teaching the strategies he’s used to invest $100M+ in 300+ startups over the past decade. Register at: angel.university.

Founder University

Applications are open for Founder University Cohort 10, a 12-week remote pre-accelerator program tailored towards navigating early-startup practices, building an MVP, and growing traction. Submit your application at Founder University— Cohort 10 will kick off Spring 2025!

LAUNCH Accelerator

Applications are open for the 34th cohort of the LAUNCH Accelerator; a 14-week program focused on fundraising and growth. We invest $125K in our accepted companies and help them raise their pre-seed or seed round. Submit your application at LAUNCH Accelerator.

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