TRO | DeepSeek Hits US$1 Billion In Annualised Revenue

Plus, YouTube Puts AI At The Centre With A Wave Of New Features and Microsoft Launches Copilot Super App To Own The Agentic Workplace

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Meliora Company
September 28, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

 Subscribe | 28th September, 2026

In this fast-moving Vertical AI economy, headlines are everywhere but optimism is rare.

Here’s our take on 3 stories that will help you be relentlessly optimistic about the future.

1. DeepSeek Hits US$1 Billion In Annualised Revenue

DeepSeek has reached a US$1 billion annualised revenue run rate, more than doubling from under US$500 million just a few months ago, driven by a significant API price increase and steady demand for its models. Founder Liang Wenfeng told investors that customers stayed despite fees rising between 2.3 and 4.5 times depending on the model. DeepSeek earned approximately US$70.7 million in the first seven months of 2026, roughly ten times its total revenue for all of 2025. The company is simultaneously finalising a second funding round of US$7.5 billion at a valuation of approximately US$74 billion.

Here’s why this matters: DeepSeek entered 2026 as a disruptor that reset global expectations about what AI models cost to build and run. It is ending the year as a commercial operation generating US$1 billion in annualised revenue with pricing power that surprised even its own investors. The ability to raise API prices by up to 4.5 times without losing customers tells you something important: DeepSeek's models have moved from curiosity to dependency for a meaningful portion of its developer base. For the broader AI industry, a Chinese lab compounding revenue at this pace while simultaneously raising US$7.5 billion in capital is a direct challenge to the assumption that the AI race belongs to Silicon Valley.

2. YouTube Puts AI At The Centre With A Wave Of New Features

At its annual Made on YouTube event, YouTube announced a sweeping set of AI features across creator tools, discovery, and shopping. Creators get AI-powered draft feedback, dynamic thumbnails tested across different audience segments, and automated thumbnail swaps when performance drops. Viewers can now build custom feeds by describing what they want to watch in natural language, with Gemini building a personalised tab on their home screen. Ask YouTube, the platform's conversational search feature used by 140 million people in June, now functions as a shopping companion, comparing products and surfacing recommendations directly from video content.

Here’s why this matters: YouTube's announcements amount to a platform-wide bet that AI will define the next era of online video, on both sides of the camera. For creators, AI tools that analyse draft content and automate thumbnail testing remove friction from the production process and give independent creators capabilities previously only available to large media teams. For advertisers and brands, Ask YouTube becoming a shopping tool is the most commercially significant announcement: 140 million people a month already use it to engage more deeply with content. Turning that behaviour into a purchase pathway, powered by Gemini and grounded in creator trust, is a direct challenge to Google Shopping, Amazon, and TikTok Shop simultaneously.

3. Microsoft Launches Copilot Super App To Own The Agentic Workplace

Microsoft has launched a major redesign of Copilot, transforming it into a unified super app for business users combining AI chat, coding, Office integration, and a new Autopilot feature that lets users create named AI agents, assign them goals, and set them to work autonomously on tasks including project tracking, deadline management, and stakeholder outreach. The app plugs directly into Excel, Word, and Teams. Microsoft 365 Copilot has already surpassed 30 million paid seats, with net seats added doubling quarter on quarter. Usage-based billing applies to the most autonomous features.

Here’s why this matters: Microsoft spent the first half of 2026 recovering from a sprawling Copilot product line that confused customers and failed to break into the consumer mainstream. The super app launch is a deliberate reset: one product, enterprise-focused, built around the agentic capabilities that are now the primary battleground across every major AI platform. The timing matters too. Meta's Muse has found early traction with consumers, and the race to own the agentic workplace is intensifying across the industry. Microsoft is betting that enterprise distribution, Office integration, and 30 million existing Copilot seats give it the structural advantage its rivals cannot match. For the TMT industry, the winner of this race will be decided by who controls the daily workflow, not who has the most capable model.

Meliora Creative Partner Spotlight: OM Sound & Vision

The Meliora Company has announced the first partnerships for Meliora Creative, its creative IP arm, with OM Sound & Vision joining the line-up. OM Sound & Vision is developing a new model for immersive entertainment, using technology to transform existing spaces into hyper-realistic shared experiences at scale.

The partnership builds on Meliora’s three-pillar model across Advisory, Ventures and Creative: helping organisations navigate change, investing in emerging technology, and working alongside founders to build and commercialise new products and intelligent experiences.

Meliora Creative is focused on bringing new ways for media and entertainment to be operated, experienced and commercialised. Read more below.

Coming Up In October: British Podcast Awards

Series 1 of Meliora’s The Relentless Optimist podcast has been shortlisted for the British Podcast Awards in the category of business. The awards will be taking place 1st October in London.

A huge thanks to our producers and partners at 18Sixty, for bringing every story to life.

Still Curious?

Our Pursuit Of Better

Australian AI healthcare start-up Heidi has become Australia's fourth unicorn of 2026, raising US$100 million in Series C equity led by Blackbird at a US$900 million valuation, alongside US$240 million in customer-acquisition financing from General Catalyst. Originally built as an AI scribe to automate clinical note-taking, Heidi is now expanding into agentic healthcare.

Snorkel AI has raised US$350 million in a Series E at a US$3.5 billion valuation, nearly triple its valuation from 17 months ago. The seven-year-old start-up has shifted from data-labelling software to selling completed AI training datasets directly, with annualised revenue reaching US$375 million. Unlike competitors whose headline figures are gross revenue, Snorkel's number reflects net revenue after expert costs.

Ema, the enterprise AI agent start-up, has raised US$77 million in Series B funding, quadrupling its valuation from 2024. The company deploys teams of AI agents across HR, IT, and finance for customers including Google, Microsoft, PwC, and Hitachi, with revenue growing 50-fold in two years and a net dollar retention rate of 180%. Revenue bookings have surpassed US$150 million across more than 50 enterprise customers.

The Pursuit of Better, Together

If this week’s newsletter sparked something, pass it on to a colleague. The best conversations often start with “You’ve got to read this”.