DeepSeek has agreed to lead the first funding round for Winverse AI, a months-old stealth startup building AI for robots, in a seed deal worth tens of millions of dollars that values the company at about $400 million after the investment, Bloomberg reported on October 12, 2026. Why it matters: it is one of DeepSeek’s biggest bets on an outside startup, and it signals the Chinese lab is pushing beyond language models into embodied AI — software that lets machines perceive and act in the physical world.
October 12, 2026
What happened
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, DeepSeek will spearhead Winverse AI’s seed financing, with Meituan’s investment arm, Long-Z Investments, also committing capital. The round amounts to tens of millions of dollars and puts Winverse’s post-money valuation at roughly $400 million — a striking figure for a company founded this year that is still operating in stealth.
The deal is not final. The people cited in the report said the valuation and the investor lineup could still change before it closes, and neither company has announced the round publicly.
The founder behind Winverse
Winverse was founded by Hu Han, a former top AI scientist at Tencent, where he led the company’s vision-language and embodied foundation model teams. He holds a PhD from Tsinghua University and previously worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu. In short, this is a team built around exactly the skill set embodied AI requires: models that combine what a robot sees with what it decides to do next.
Where the money comes from
DeepSeek is deploying capital from its own recent financing of more than $12 billion, much of which was earmarked for model training and data centers. Directing some of that pool into a robotics startup suggests DeepSeek sees its future not only in selling model access, but in owning a stake in the physical-world applications those models could power — from humanoid robots to industrial automation.
Why it matters
Embodied AI is becoming the next contest for frontier labs. Language models are increasingly commoditized, but a model that can reliably control a robot in an unpredictable warehouse or factory is a different — and potentially much larger — prize. A $400 million seed-stage valuation, before any public product, shows how aggressively investors are pricing scarce talent in this field. For readers, the practical takeaway is this: watch where the big labs put their own money. DeepSeek is not just building models for robots built by others; it is buying into the robot-brain business itself. As always with deals reported before closing, treat the headline number as provisional until the companies confirm it — everything AI, tested, means checking what is signed, not just what is said.
Frequently asked questions
What is Winverse AI?
Winverse AI is a stealth startup founded in 2026 that builds artificial intelligence for robots — systems intended to help machines perceive their surroundings, understand them, and act in the physical world.
How much is DeepSeek investing in Winverse?
Bloomberg reported the seed round is worth tens of millions of dollars in total, led by DeepSeek, and values Winverse at about $400 million after the investment. The deal has not closed, and terms could change.
Who else is backing Winverse AI?
Meituan’s investment arm, Long-Z Investments, has also committed to the round, according to the same report.
Sources: Bloomberg (via Bloomberg Tax and The Next Web reporting), Odaily