‘No poaching' our people, China's AI behemoth DeepSeek reportedly tells investors (3 minute read)

# ‘No poaching’ our people, China's AI behemoth DeepSeek reportedly tells investors Source: [https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/no-poaching-our-people-chinas-deepseek-reportedly-tells-investors.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/18/no-poaching-our-people-chinas-deepseek-reportedly-tells-investors.html) A man takes photos of a DeepSeek display at a shopping mall in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 23, 2026\. Chinese startup DeepSeek released a new artificial intelligence model with "drastically reduced" costs on April 24, more than a year after it stunned the world with a low\-cost reasoning model that matched the capabilities of US rivals\. Afp \| Getty Images China's DeepSeek has a precondition for its $7\.4 billion maiden fundraise: no poaching the AI lab's talents\. During a four\-hour virtual meeting with prospective investors in May, founder Liang Wenfeng told participants on the call that a condition of investing in DeepSeek was a promise not to poach the startup's staff or encourage them to start their own companies, a fundraising\-focused news outlet owned by 36Kr[reported Wednesday](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rDhCBwRXuyDMTFNqqA2dVg?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)\. CNBC couldn't independently verify the report\. The unusual talent\-poaching precondition under*s*cores how the contest among Chinese tech giants to build advanced AI, and eventually AGI, has tipped into open competition for engineers\. DeepSeek reportedly[closed its first external funding](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/deepseek-closes-record-7-billion-plus-funding-unusual-deal-structure)round this week, which valued the Hangzhou\-based company at more than $50 billion and made it China's most valuable AI\-only startup\. The startup, which had turned down outside funding since its inception to focus on research instead of commercialization, sought the latest fundraise after losing a number of key researchers to rivals\. Luo Fuli, a core[contributor to its V3 model](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1s79Z5cAAAAJ&hl=zh-CN), left[late last year](https://x.com/_LuoFuli/status/1988296664868901201)to lead Xiaomi's MiMo team, which has since released AI models that[outperformed](https://openrouter.ai/rankings)DeepSeek's own on several benchmarks\. ByteDance has lost two key AI developers to Tencent,[36kr reported in March, citing sources](https://36kr.com/p/3736935323254785)\. The Information[reported on Monday](https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/exclusive-tencent-backs-former-alibaba-researchers-new-ai-lab?rc=73cmd4), citing sources, that Tencent had invested $20 million in a new AI lab founded by Juyang Lin, former lead researcher for Alibaba's Qwen models\. Lin said in March[he stepped down](https://x.com/JustinLin610/status/2028865835373359513)from Qwen\. Alibaba replaced the head of its corporate\-focused Dingtalk app after an[internal debate](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/alibaba-s-dingtalk-chief-departs-after-debate-about-ai-focus)about the unit's role in the company's overall AI strategy, Bloomberg reported in June, citing sources\. Eyeing talent that trained at frontrunning U\.S\. labs, Tencent hired[Yao Shunyu from OpenAI](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/05/china-may-move-toward-us-path-on-ai-as-firms-poach-employees.html)to become chief AI scientist for the Chinese tech company last year\. Both Yao and DeepSeek's Liang see China's path forward in fully committing to developing AGI — AI with human\-level or above capabilities\. DeepSeek, Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment\.