DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng's quantitative fund skyrocketed 56% in one year, fueling AI ambitions

Bloomberg reports that the hedge fund Horizon Quant, founded and led by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, delivered an astonishing return of over 56% in 2025. Not only did it rank second among China’s quantitative funds, but it also provided DeepSeek with far more capital backing than typical startups, quietly changing the competitive landscape of China’s AI startups.

Horizon Quant’s performance report revealed: Quantitative fund annual return rate 56%, ranking among the top

According to data from Chinese fund consulting firm Paipai.com, Liang Wenfeng (Liang Wenfeng)'s Horizon Quant (Zhejiang High-Flyer Asset Management) achieved an average fund return of 56.6% in 2025, ranking second among Chinese quantitative funds managing over 10 billion RMB, only behind Ningbo Lingjun Investment Management (Ningbo Lingjun Investment Management), which posted a 70% return.

It is reported that Horizon Quant’s assets under management have exceeded 70 billion RMB, with Liang Wenfeng holding the majority stake in the company.

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From quantitative funds to AI side ventures: Horizon Quant as DeepSeek’s financial backer

Unlike most AI startups that rely on external venture capital, DeepSeek’s early R&D funding actually came from within Horizon Quant. Liang Wenfeng once stated that DeepSeek was incubated with the fund’s 2023 R&D budget.

Li Minghong (Li Minghong), Investment Director at Shanghai Chitu Asset Management (E Tiger Private Fund), estimates that Horizon Quant, relying solely on 1% management fee and 20% performance share in 2025, could generate over $700 million in revenue—far exceeding DeepSeek’s publicly disclosed budget of less than $6 million used for developing its key AI models.

Li Minghong pointed out: “Liang Wenfeng now definitely has more capital to support a larger team and to purchase more computing power and hardware for DeepSeek.”

When your first startup performs well, it’s easier to incubate the second.

(DeepSeek launches V3.2 and Speciale, with reasoning and performance rivaling GPT-5 and Gemini 3)

Long strategy proves effective: trading team’s strength is astonishing

Horizon Quant’s high returns stem from its decisive exit from market-neutral strategies in 2024, fully shifting to pure long stock strategies.

Data shows that the two products managed by co-founder Xu Jin increased by an average of 58.6% in 2025, while CEO Lu Zhengzhe’s eight products averaged a return of 56%. Among them, Lu Zhengzhe’s risk-adjusted return in stock strategies ranked first, with a Sharpe ratio (Sharpe ratio) of as high as 2.8, demonstrating exceptional strength.

Can the rise of Chinese quantitative funds foster AI startup development?

Horizon Quant’s success is not an exception. In 2025, the average return rate of Chinese quantitative funds reached 30.5%, more than double that of global peers, with long strategies averaging a 35% return, clearly leading traditional subjective funds.

Meanwhile, the number of quantitative institutions managing over 5 billion RMB increased from 63 to 91 within a year. Although regulatory tightening on information disclosure has reduced the statistical sample size, the overall trend indicates that Chinese quantitative finance may become an important capital source supporting the next generation of AI startups, reshaping the future funding structure of technological competition.

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