DeepSeek reportedly hires Hillhouse partner Yan Wentao, 33, as its first CFO ahead of IPO
量子位 · wechat · 2026-09-15
Reuters reports DeepSeek plans to hire Yan Wentao, a partner at Hillhouse's GL Ventures born in 1991, as its first-ever CFO. Chinese outlet QbitAI dug into his background and the capital story behind it.
Profile: Fudan grad, campus startup founder, BCG intern at 19, former 21st Century Business Herald intern reporter; joined Tencent investment in 2013, then HCapital, and GL Ventures in 2020, making partner in six years. Deals include ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, J&T, Webull — and rival AI firms Zhipu and MiniMax.
Why now: The CFO role sat empty for 1.5 years since Feb 2025 as High-Flyer (¥70B AUM) bankrolled the company. Hiring restarted in July, with top VCs interviewing; Liang Wenfeng reportedly wanted a 90s-born CFO.
IPO battle: Reuters reported DeepSeek hired CITIC Securities for a STAR Market IPO targeting as early as 2027, with a rumored ¥500B valuation vs. an estimated ¥3.5B ARR. Motivations: soaring compute costs, High-Flyer's tighter finances, and key researcher departures (Xiaomi, ByteDance Seed, Tencent Hunyuan) — IPO equity would help retain the team.
Related event: DeepSeek Poises to Hire Hillhouse Partner Yan Wentao as First CFO(3 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Tera Hosts Inaugural RL Summit, Bringing Together Engineering and Research — nirmal_dist · 2026-10-31
- Garry Tan teases Lightcone podcast episode with PStack and GStack creators — garrytan · 2026-10-31
- Bittensor subnet SN44 October recap: major real-time graphics company testing its football model — richdotca · 2026-10-31
- Talk: how AI is reshaping education, from edtech builders to university classrooms — Cohere · 2026-10-31
- Google: AI Mode, AI Overviews and Search merging into one unified product — gaganghotra_ · 2026-10-31
- HubSpot co-founder: startups die from suicide, not homicide — competition isn't the real killer — nathanbenaich · 2026-10-31