Venture capitalists plowed money into A.I. start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic. But the rise of the Chinese A.I. start-up DeepSeek has called that funding frenzy into question.

Jordan Jacobs, an investor at the venture capital firm Radical Ventures, has spent the last few days fielding half a dozen calls from his firm’s investors. All of them wanted to know about DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence app that topped the app stores over the weekend.

DeepSeek had created a powerful A.I. model with far less money than most A.I. experts thought possible, upending many assumptions underlying the development of the fast-evolving technology. To calm the panic, Mr. Jacobs said he explained to his investors that Radical Ventures had long invested in more efficient A.I. models, similar to the one made by DeepSeek.

“Let’s focus on the companies who are actually building real businesses, rather than the ones that are chasing science fiction,” Mr.

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