❯ DeepSeek plans to lead a round in Winverse, a robotics AI company founded by former Tencent scientist Hu Han

Seed round not finalizedIfeng Tech, citing Bloomberg, reports that DeepSeek plans to lead Winverse AI’s seed round of tens of millions of dollars, with Meituan’s Longzhu Capital also committing, valuing it at about $400 million afterward. The deal isn’t final; Hu Han, DeepSeek and Longzhu did not comment.

Building brains for robotsFounded in 2026 and still in stealth, Winverse AI builds AI for robots, known as embodied intelligence: helping AI understand its surroundings and control machines to complete tasks.

A founder from TencentFounder Hu Han was Tencent’s chief scientist leading vision-language and embodied foundation model teams; he holds a PhD from Tsinghua University and previously worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu.

DeepSeek bets on robotsThis is among DeepSeek’s largest startup investments. It earlier took a 2% stake in Unitree through its Shanghai listing to work on embodied models. If the deal closes, Winverse may get not only money but a chance to work with DeepSeek’s model team.

▮ SIGNALModel companies are starting to back robotics teams, and model capability is looking for a body that can do physical work.