The emergence of DeepSeek has only served to “reinforce” the investment thesis of SuperSeed Capital, the AI investor said this week, despite the industry disruption brought about by the chatbot’s launch.
In January, DeepSeek’s latest release demonstrated that top-tier AI performance could be achieved at just 5% of traditional inference costs, triggering a $1 trillion market value correction across AI-related stocks, including a $600bn valuation fall for chipmaker Nvidia.
“For SuperSeed’s investment strategy, this efficiency breakthrough actually strengthens our thesis: AI implementation becomes more economically viable for enterprises, accelerating adoption of the very solutions our portfolio companies provide,” the early-stage investor said, adding that there were at least three ways in which its thesis was reinforced:
- Reduced implementation costs: Lower inference costs accelerate enterprise AI adoption, expanding the market for the fund’s portfolio companies;
- Capital efficiency advantage: The fund’s portfolio companies build on existing AI infrastructure rather than developing foundational models, requiring far less capital while capturing significant value; and
- Specialization premium: As base AI capabilities become more accessible, domain expertise and vertical-specific solutions command increasing premiums.
The London-based, Aquis-listed investor said the value of its portfolio grew 14% to top £3m in the fourth quarter of the year, after it deployed a further £230k in capital including leading a £3.5m seed round into startup Cerve, which is using AI to tackle the food and beverage industry’s data integration challenge.
SuperSeed Capital said it expected to make 4-7 new investments in 2025 as it completes the deployment of of its SuperSeed II fund and prepares for SuperSeed III. The firm said it would look for capital-efficient companies leveraging AI to solve enterprise challenges.
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