BlueRun Ventures Closes New RMB 5.5 Billion Dual-Currency Fund

BlueRun Ventures recently announced the closing of its latest dual-currency fund, with total commitments equivalent to roughly RMB 5.5 billion.

The RMB fund was raised in approximately six months, drawing commitments from national-level funds including the National SME Development Fund, well-known government guidance funds, mainstream financial institutions, top-tier fund-of-funds, and prominent family offices. Based on their confidence in BlueRun, several LPs in this RMB fund are repeat investors.

The USD fund's LPs include internationally renowned insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, with an exceptionally high reinvestment rate from existing investors.

BlueRun Ventures' total assets under management now exceed RMB 15 billion, making it one of the largest early-stage funds in China.

Jui Chan, Managing Partner at BlueRun Ventures, said: "Throughout our development, we have constantly adapted to change, but our commitment to early-stage and technology investing has never wavered. BlueRun inherits Silicon Valley's innovative DNA while firmly grasping domestic development trends. We are deeply grateful for the trust of our new and existing investors. We will continue to respect innovation, support outstanding Chinese tech talent, and accompany more technology companies that are rooted in China but oriented toward the world as they grow and thrive. In a sense, we don't see ourselves merely as investors — we see ourselves as allocators of resources. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to allocate resources to support entrepreneurs who refuse to be defined and dare to go first, while generating steady returns for our investors and sustained value for society."

Focused on Early-Stage Investing in the "Four News"

BlueRun Ventures China was established in 2005 and has consistently adhered to an early-stage technology investment strategy, concentrating on Pre-A and Series A rounds. Its investment areas cover hard tech and innovative interaction, enterprise technology, new consumption, and healthcare, with over 150 portfolio companies to date.

The new fund will continue to focus on the "Four News": new energy, new efficiency, new interaction, and new science.

New energy refers to the application and frontier exploration of electrification, photovoltaics, hydrogen energy, and new energy storage networks in mobility, industry, logistics, and other sectors. BlueRun's existing portfolio includes: Li Auto, Energy Monster, Songguo Mobility, Yimaiche, Botree Cycling, TCab Tech, Cloud Energy Storage, and XinGan Technology.

New efficiency means the deep application of digitalization, automation, and intelligence in manufacturing — such as intelligent hardware and robotics, foundational software, and chips; in services and industry — such as service and industrial robots, consumer technology, and dispatch algorithm platforms; and in biomedicine — such as AI plus life sciences. BlueRun has invested in QingCloud Technology, Gaussian Robotics, Jishi Design, Youibot, Leimo Technology, and OptFuture.

New interaction: as optical technology accelerates and rendering computing power surges, VR and AR experiences are approaching real-world fidelity. This means a new interactive experience is being created, where humans will eventually socialize, entertain, work, and live in the "metaverse." New interaction generates more real-time data, and new sensors further digitize living spaces, creating demand for decentralized processing and decision-making represented by Web 3, with new economic models forming rapidly. BlueRun has invested in LLVision, NOLO, Tiantiantiaosheng, Art Master, and WAYZ.AI.

Finally, new science. Future transformation and opportunity lie not only in "technology" but also in "science" — more fundamental scientific theories and innovative applications of frontier technologies such as brain-computer interfaces, life sciences, and nuclear fusion. In this future-oriented area, BlueRun has invested in BioMap and Energy Singularity.

Hard Tech, Soft Landing

Drawing on its Silicon Valley DNA, BlueRun has always believed that "refusing to be defined" is the essence of entrepreneurship and innovation, and that early-stage investing requires continually pushing boundaries and daring to go first. Since 2015, BlueRun Ventures has been focused on "hard tech" investing. When hard tech projects were widely considered incapable of generating returns, BlueRun developed its own "non-consensus" view: hard tech needs a soft landing — the connection between underlying technological innovation and market demand.

Therefore, BlueRun began early on to serve as a node broadly connecting scientific research with commercialization, driven by industry research, probing deep change factors, identifying demand inflection points ahead of time, and focusing on how core technologies and application scenarios can better integrate.

Under this investment strategy, BlueRun has harvested multiple high-growth projects in hard tech sub-sectors in recent years.

In energy and mobility: Botree Cycling, Ascend Energy, XinGan Technology, and Machenike. Among them, Botree Cycling, as a power battery recycling solution provider, possesses next-generation wet-process recycling technology and chemical formulations that can regenerate over 90% of waste battery materials into battery-grade products, achieving over 20% end-of-life vehicle value recovery. As electric vehicle batteries reach peak retirement and processing volume, Botree Cycling's frontier technology is now seeing commercial deployment.

In intelligent manufacturing: Leimo Technology, Shanhai Semiconductor, and Yuntu Semiconductor. Leimo Technology, a provider of 3D metal printing solutions for the mold industry, is driving digital transformation in mold manufacturing through 3D printing technology, becoming the only domestic company to have crossed into industrial-scale application of mold 3D printing, with an input-output ratio of 1:5 for 3D-printed molds, and has entered the mold and plastic injection supply chains of multiple high-quality customers.

In robotics: YS Robotics, ChengTian Technology, Mooe Robotics, Lanxin Technology, and Youibot. YS Robotics, a supplier of fully autonomous drones and systems, is redefining the ultra-low-altitude domain from ground level to 500 meters through industrial drones and fully automated airports, capable of operating without pilots in power systems, oil pipeline networks, urban management, and emergency rescue scenarios, fundamentally reducing on-site execution pressure.

In enterprise services: Anxin Shield, Yanhuang Data, Moyun Technology, and Penglai Data. Anxin Shield, a server information security solution provider, focuses on memory security amid increasingly blurred security boundaries, offering comprehensive three-dimensional protection combining application layer, system layer, and hardware layer.

Horizontal-Vertical Integration, Enabling Early-Stage Critical Support

BlueRun Ventures adheres to early-stage investment discipline and firmly believes that early-stage investors should provide entrepreneurs with critical enablement from a market perspective, building deeper connections through the business itself. BlueRun believes that the most critical enablement an early-stage investor can provide is working with entrepreneurs to identify and meet demand earlier and more precisely during the 0-to-1 phase, and through a longer-term perspective, supporting companies that are at or approaching commercialization inflection points.

Markets change rapidly, and BlueRun can quickly sense shifts in application scenarios, economic policy, and competitive landscape, rapidly iterating and feeding insights back to portfolio companies to help them achieve rapid development.

A key reason BlueRun can judge demand and provide critical enablement is its composite team combining industry backgrounds with professional expertise. To invest in technological innovation, understanding industry is essential to grasping how to apply a technology to industrial scenarios. When building its investment team, BlueRun deliberately seeks "T-shaped talent": deep vertical knowledge of industries, combined with attention to horizontal cross-industry applications of technological innovation. Breaking through from both horizontal and vertical directions, accumulated expertise in different domains cross-fertilizes through intersection and integration, forming a virtuous cycle. This horizontal-vertical integration and smooth collaboration constitute BlueRun's formidable investment team.

Meanwhile, BlueRun has built an institutionalized, systematic middle- and back-office infrastructure. Team members possess years of experience and resource accumulation, providing portfolio companies with strategic, financial, legal, HR, and branding support, and helping them build first-class ecosystems in the technology sector.

Beyond this, BlueRun supports portfolio companies through follow-on investments. For QingCloud Technology, BlueRun supported from seed round through Pre-IPO. For Li Auto, during periods when new car makers faced repeated skepticism, BlueRun invested across five consecutive rounds starting from Series A2. For Keyi Technology, BlueRun became the first institutional investor when it was still a student team, and participated in every subsequent funding round.

Over nearly two decades, BlueRun Ventures has navigated multiple technology transformation cycles, witnessing and accompanying the growth of companies across different eras. With the closing of its latest dual-currency fund, BlueRun Ventures will continue its early-stage and technology investment strategy, focusing on frontier innovation and its commercialization, and jointly delivering innovation value with entrepreneurs.

"If we want to shape what China becomes in the future, we must start with ourselves. What we think and what we do are all influential factors, however small."

Together, redefining future technology and life from 0 to 1!

Further Reading

What Does a Career You Define Yourself Look Like? | BlueRun Talent Philosophy

BlueRun Ventures Quarterly Investment Review | 2022 Q1

Documenting Our Era of Refusing to Be Defined | BlueRun Ventures 2021 Annual Review

Waterdrop Lists on NYSE, BlueRun Ventures Investor in Series A, A+, and B Rounds

"First Shared Charging IPO" Energy Monster Lists, BlueRun Ventures Early-Stage Investor

QingCloud Technology Lists on STAR Market, BlueRun Ventures Lead Investor and Largest Institutional Shareholder

Li Auto Lists with $10 Billion Market Cap, BlueRun Ventures Invested Across 5 Rounds

BlueRun Ventures was founded in Silicon Valley in 1998. BlueRun Ventures China was established in 2005 and is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups.

Currently, BlueRun Ventures manages multiple USD and RMB dual-currency funds in China, with assets under management exceeding RMB 15 billion. It concentrates on Pre-A and Series A rounds, with investment coverage spanning hard tech and innovative interaction, enterprise technology, new consumption, and healthcare. It has invested in over 150 startups, including Li Auto, Waterdrop, QingCloud, Guazi.com, Qudian, Songguo Mobility, Ganji.com, Energy Monster, Yuntu Semiconductor, Machenike, YS Robotics, Anxin Shield, and BioMap.

BlueRun Ventures has been ranked #1 on Zero2IPO's "China Top 30 Early-Stage Investment Institutions" and ChinaVenture's "China Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Institutions TOP30," and was named to Preqin's Global Top 10 VC Fund Managers for Sustained High Returns.

Additionally, BlueRun Ventures has received consecutive annual recognition from Forbes China, 36Kr, Cyzone, Caixin Media, CBNweekly, Jiemian, and other media organizations as "China's Best Early-Stage Institution," "China's Top Venture Capital Institution," "Most Entrepreneur-Friendly Early-Stage Institution," and "Most Influential Early-Stage Institution."