DeepSeek, the Chinese developer of large language models, is preparing for its IPO debut in 2027, but it could arrive as soon as ind this year as it also seeks to raise about $1.5 billion in new funding at a valuation of about $71 billion, Bloomberg reports. The news comes after the company raised $7 billion in funding just a month ago at a valuation of around $50 billion in its first external funding round.

The China-based startup, founded in 2023, made headlines early last year after launching artificial intelligence technology that was more efficient and profitable than American model makers. Since then, its popularity has grown exponentially. In June, it accounted for nearly 23% of all tens of trillions of tokens processed by enterprise-focused AI portal Vercel, the company reports. This is compared to Anthropic which takes 32% of the tokens.

DeepSeek continues to show how open source Chinese models perform within a few breaths of leading US AI labs, despite US chip export controls. DeepSeek’s cloud service runs on chips made by Chinese company Huawei Technologies. Investors in DeepSeek include Tencent and Beijing’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, according to Bloomberg.

DeepSeek could not be reached for comment.