DeepSeek - Wikipedia Based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Deepseek is owned and funded by the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer DeepSeek was founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, the co-founder of High-Flyer, who also serves as the CEO for both of the companies [7][8][9] The company launched an eponymous chatbot alongside its DeepSeek-R1 model in January 2025