BlueRun Ventures Quarterly Investment Overview | 2022 Q2
The fund's investments span new energy, enterprise services, hard tech, and healthcare.
Every quarter, we round up the latest funding news from BlueRun Ventures' portfolio companies.
In Q2 2022, the BlueRun family logged 9 disclosed financing events, spanning new energy, enterprise software, hard tech, and healthcare. Seven were new investments and two were follow-on rounds.
Interested in these projects or looking to join a portfolio team? Reach out to us at china@brv.com.cn
New Investments
eVTOL Aircraft R&D and Manufacturing
ZeroG Aircraft Industry closes nearly RMB 10 million seed round
Sole investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Founded in March 2021, ZeroG focuses on eVTOL aircraft R&D and manufacturing. With a vision to build the third transportation ecosystem on Earth, the team is currently the only known Chinese startup simultaneously developing multi-rotor, compound-wing, and tilt-rotor configurations.
BlueRun's take: We see urban aerial mobility reaching an inflection point where it's poised to scale. eVTOL still carries meaningful complexity and technical barriers. The ZeroG team brings full-stack technical capabilities alongside the engineering rigor needed for productization. We're confident they'll advance eVTOL toward broader adoption.
Giant Intelligent Mining Truck Developer
Iridium Molybdenum Intelligence (YiMo) announces tens of millions of RMB angel round
Lead investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Founded in July 2021, YiMo is a technology company integrating R&D, design, production, and sales of new energy construction machinery with mining logistics services. The founding team hails from Tsinghua University's Department of Automotive Engineering. Its flagship products are giant intelligent mining trucks and electric construction equipment for closed-operation environments. Starting from mining scenarios, the company plans to expand into ports, steel mills, major water conservancy and hydropower projects, and road construction — a trillion-RMB addressable market — with ambitions to become a global leader in new energy construction machinery manufacturing and operations.
BlueRun's take: As new energy industries mature, vehicle electrification presents massive opportunities across mobility segments, with construction machinery representing one of the largest markets. YiMo brings deep forward-design expertise in both mining and electric vehicles, achieving electrification and intelligence in wide-body mining trucks while building out comprehensive green mining solutions that boost operational efficiency and cut emissions. We believe they'll emerge as a top brand in new energy construction machinery.
Intelligent Automotive Software Products
Huayu Tongruan closes tens of millions of RMB in Series A1 funding
Sole investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Founded in 2020, Huayu focuses on foundational intelligent driving software. In 2021, it released "Swift" (Greenstone SWIFT DDS) — China's first fully self-developed communications middleware based on the DDS standard — enabling multi-node communication across intelligent vehicles while ensuring critical data is transmitted securely, in real time, and reliably. This supports rapid development and efficient deployment of upper-layer applications, handling the massive multi-source heterogeneous data flows required for intelligent driving.
BlueRun's take: As the auto industry rapidly advances toward intelligence, connectivity, electrification, and shared mobility, achieving "software-defined vehicles" requires modern middleware platforms to replace and upgrade legacy software under new EE architectures. Huayu Tongruan aims to become a world-class intelligent automotive software product company. Its automotive middleware, particularly its fully autonomous and controllable OMG DDS-based communications middleware, has gained recognition from OEMs and diverse partners and is now entering volume production. The team's deep expertise in foundational software, next-generation tech stacks, automotive EE architecture, and systems — combined with proven execution — made this an easy decision. BlueRun is proud to back Huayu Tongruan's Series A1 and expects the company to lead China's automotive foundational software development onto the global stage.
Innovative Medical Technology Growth Company
SinBrain (Zhongke Ruiyi) closes tens of millions of RMB in Pre-A funding
Lead investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: SinBrain is an innovative medical technology growth company spun out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, built on neuroscience research that won a National Science and Technology Progress Award. It integrates industry-academia-research medical engineering capabilities to provide intelligent technology solutions spanning screening, diagnosis, treatment, and research for neurological diseases.
BlueRun's take: Neurological diseases present enormous unmet needs across screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation with clearly defined pain points. Leveraging the Chinese Academy of Sciences' years of accumulated intelligent human-computer interaction technology and clinical expertise from leading centers including Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Beijing Tiantan Hospital, SinBrain has developed quantitative assessment systems for core neurological functions including motor and cognitive capabilities — systems with the potential to become "new infrastructure" for neuroscience.
Software-Defined Digital Energy Management Systems
Yunchu New Energy closes over RMB 100 million in Pre-A funding
Lead investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Yunchu New Energy develops software-defined digital energy management systems, with core technology built on distributed software-defined digital energy exchange systems based on energy informatization technology. The company has a production-research integrated core team comprising experts in power electronics, battery management, energy storage, chip design, and software development, with deep collaboration with Tsinghua University's Department of Electrical Engineering.
BlueRun's take: New energy is a major investment focus for BlueRun, and energy storage is among our highest-conviction sectors. Today, energy storage faces challenges in both safety and economics. Professor Ci Song, Yunchu's founder, brings years of R&D experience in digital energy storage. Starting from first principles, his team has built a novel dynamically reconfigurable battery network that neutralizes cell-to-cell variability while enabling finer-grained battery control — creating a product with exceptional technical innovation that has already won recognition from multiple heavyweight customers. We believe the Yunchu team is positioned for substantial growth in energy storage.
Service Robotics Innovator
Wanxun Technology closes tens of millions of USD in Pre-A+ series
Lead investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Founded in 2019, Wanxun is a technology-driven high-growth enterprise committed to providing flexible, dexterous, and safe operational interactive service robots for industries and households. The team has built full-stack robotics capabilities through independent innovation, creating an integrated intelligent operational robot solution centered on lightweight compliant manipulators that meets diverse demands for safe, flexible mobile, and interactive operations across service scenarios. Products are deployed across public services, security and power, energy and chemicals, disinfection and epidemic prevention, and smart campuses.
BlueRun's take: Frontier robotics innovation is a key BlueRun priority. Traditional rigid robotic arms face cost, flexibility, and safety constraints that limit large-scale deployment in many scenarios. After years of R&D, the Wanxun team has pioneered modular, low-cost, high-safety compliant manipulator and gripper solutions that have already gained traction with major customers. We see broad potential for their compliant robots to enter more application scenarios and deliver novel user experiences.
Emerging Footwear and Apparel Brand
Reload completes RMB 30 million Pre-A round
Lead investor: BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Reload is a brand incubated and invested in by "Be Friends" (Jiao Ge Peng You). The company also owns multiple brands including "What Horse," "Joshua Tree," "Ozone," and "Different Paths Same Destination," spanning home goods, watches and accessories, streetwear, and original sneakers — all high-growth categories. Reload has shown standout growth: in just six months, monthly GMV exceeded RMB 14 million with average month-over-month growth above 40%, and the brand turned profitable in May.
BlueRun's take: We're encouraged to see domestic fashion sportswear brands like Li-Ning and ANTA Group gradually breaking foreign brands' grip on footwear and apparel, with design and quality winning consumer recognition. Meanwhile, footwear supply chains are complex, creating high barriers for new brands and genuine opportunity for differentiation. The Reload team brings strong design capabilities, supply chain integration and optimization skills, and a sharp sense of trend direction. With "Be Friends'" powerful traffic and distinctive IP, they're well-positioned to incubate a new generation of Chinese original design footwear and apparel brands.
Follow-On Rounds
Consumer Robotics Company
Keyi Technology closes new funding round
Continued support from BlueRun Ventures
Company profile: Founded in 2014, Keyi is a consumer robotics company dedicated to bringing robots into homes. It applies industrial-grade control algorithms to consumer products. Its debut product, ClicBot — a programmable modular robot kit — successfully integrates control technology, perception, and AI into artistic design, creating a delightful intelligent toy for children.
BlueRun's take: As Keyi's first institutional investor, we're pleased to see broader investor recognition. The company is committed to bringing modular robotics into homes, launching intelligent consumer robots for different ages and scenarios while building an active, engaging content-sharing community. Founder Jianbo Yang brings exceptional product and iteration capabilities, blending intelligent technology with art to continually expand the boundaries of consumer creation and experience.
Edge Cloud Service Provider
PPIO closes RMB 250 million Series A
BlueRun Ventures continues to add
Company profile: Founded in 2018 by PPTV founder Xin Yao and co-founder Wenyu Wang, PPIO provides edge cloud computing services and solutions meeting demands for low latency, high bandwidth, and massive distributed data processing.
BlueRun's take: BlueRun was an early PPIO investor. We've long believed that next-generation applications — cloud gaming, AR/VR, spatial digitization, the metaverse — only become truly viable and consumer-ready when low-latency infrastructure matures. Founder Xin Yao and the PPIO team have deep roots in edge computing and distributed cloud services, with profound insight and foresight into future interactive applications and service scenarios. BlueRun strongly supports and will continue backing PPIO as it becomes an industry leader, exporting high-quality edge cloud technology and products globally to better serve the broad applications between people, between people and machines, and between machines — using technology to improve lives and make the world better.
BlueRun Ventures was founded in Silicon Valley in 1998. BlueRun Ventures China was established in 2005 as a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups.
Today, BlueRun Ventures China manages multiple USD and RMB dual-currency funds with over RMB 15 billion in assets under management, making it one of China's largest early-stage funds. It focuses on Pre-A and Series A investments across hard tech and innovative interaction, enterprise technology, new consumer, and healthcare. The firm has invested in over 150 startups including Li Auto, Waterdrop, QingCloud, Guazi Used Car, Qudian, Songguo Mobility, Ganji.com, Energy Monster, Yuntu Semiconductor, Machenike, Cloud Saint Intelligence, Anxin Network Shield, and BioMap.
BlueRun Ventures has been ranked #1 in Zero2IPO's "China Top 30 Early-Stage Investment Institutions," #1 in ChinaVenture's "China Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Institutions TOP30," and among Preqin's Top 10 global venture capital managers for sustained high returns.
The firm has also received consecutive recognition from Forbes China, 36Kr, Cyzone, Caixin Media, CBNweekly, Jiemian, and other media as "China Early-Stage VC of the Year," "China Top-Tier Venture Capital Firm," "Most Entrepreneur-Friendly Early-Stage Firm," and "Most Influential Early-Stage Investment Firm."