BlueRun Ventures Leads $120 Million Angel Round in Tashi Zhihang, Embarking on a New Journey in Embodied Intelligence | BlueRun Portfolio
Not just a "robotics company," but an "industry scenario solutions company."
Embodied intelligence is welcoming a major new player. On March 26, TARS (Tashi Zhihang), an embodied intelligence startup, announced the completion of a $120 million angel round, marking the beginning of its entrepreneurial journey in embodied intelligence. The round was led by BlueRun Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners, with participation from Linear Capital, Hengxu Capital, Hongtai APlus, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Xiang He Capital, and Hillhouse. The funding will be primarily allocated to product and technology R&D, model training, and scenario expansion.
BlueRun Ventures stated: In the embodied intelligence track, BlueRun Ventures has made long-term, systematic investments and has been the first investor in multiple unicorns. This conviction stems from our firm belief in China's comparative advantages — as the primary engine of growth shifts, China's strengths in supply chain, talent, and application scenarios are being elevated. We believe Chinese companies will inevitably create world-class technology products and services.
TARS is a team with exceptionally strong full-stack AI capabilities in the market: the team possesses world-class world-model construction capabilities and the engineering prowess to deliver ultra-large, complex systems at scale; the company has deep technical accumulation in robot body design and motion control algorithms, with integrated hardware-software delivery capabilities; at the same time, the team has profound insight into pain points in target industries, enabling it to precisely anchor high-value application scenarios and deliver complete solutions. TARS is not merely a "robotics company," but a "scenario-based solutions company." We look forward to TARS driving new developments in the industry.
At the end of 2024, after the TARS team first conceived of starting a company, they reached out to BlueRun Ventures as their first fundraising contact. Through extensive research, analysis, and cross-validation, the TARS team left a deep impression on us.
We had previously identified two core challenges facing embodied intelligence companies today: First, whether they can identify clear, high-commercial-value scenarios genuinely driven by embodied intelligence, thereby building competitive moats; second, whether their technical solutions possess the potential for continuous evolution, enabling them to consistently identify the right development direction as the industry progresses while integrating with past accumulations. These two challenges require teams to possess two capabilities: the ability to construct ultra-large, ultra-complex systems engineering, and accurate judgment of new technologies' effectiveness and boundaries.
TARS represents one of the extremely rare teams in the current market that possesses these capabilities. Core team members have extensive experience in autonomous driving — a domain that has genuinely completed the closed loop from technology to commercialization — giving them particularly deep insight into this point. Currently, cutting-edge exploration in embodied intelligence is advancing in intertwined academic and industrial threads. Based on their respective endowments, different teams offer valuable approaches to solving technical and commercial problems and realizing scenario value. But the unchanging core is to promote intelligence growth by responding to scenario demands, achieving simultaneous gains in revenue, data, and knowledge — this is how to reach the moment when industry PMF arrives.
Yilun Chen, founder and CEO of TARS, stated: "TARS's mission is to build trustworthy super embodied intelligence systems centered on physical-world AI and general robotics technology, enabling high-performance AI to integrate into human society's production and life at scale." Chen believes that over the next decade, embodied intelligence will become a key engine of global industrial upgrading. TARS will continue pushing the boundaries of physical-world intelligence and exploring the unlimited potential of embodied intelligence.
TARS was formally established on February 5, 2025, and is uniquely positioned in the industry as a company simultaneously possessing embodied intelligence large-model capabilities, body R&D capabilities, and integrated hardware-software mass production capabilities. In terms of technical approach, TARS has created a new paradigm for embodied intelligence technology development, pioneering in the industry a Human-Centric embodied data engine that enables breakthrough leaps in real-world embodied data acquisition capabilities, injecting powerful momentum into the continuous development of physical-world AI. At the same time, TARS has also pioneered in the industry a spatial perception and reasoning decision-integrated embodied large model, accelerating the GPT moment for embodied intelligence technology development by building a data-driven, generalizable general physical-world intelligence system.
Regarding team composition, TARS's founding team has been acclaimed by the industry as a "luxury dream team combination" and the "strongest full-stack AI capability team" in embodied intelligence to date: CEO Yilun Chen is a leading figure in China's embodied intelligence and autonomous driving technology and industry, formerly chief scientist for intelligent robotics at the Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) at Tsinghua University, CTO of Huawei Autonomous Driving, and chief engineer of machine vision at DJI. Chief Scientist Wenchao Ding, a former Huawei "Genius Youth" and young scientist in embodied intelligence, is a researcher at Fudan University's Robotics Research Institute; he led the development of Huawei's intelligent driving end-to-end decision network from scratch and built Fudan's first humanoid robot. Chief Architect Tongqing Chen, a Tsinghua University Ph.D. and chief scientist of a national major project, formerly headed Huawei ADS's intelligent navigation department and served as chief technical expert for spatial perception; with deep experience in industrial manufacturing, AI, autonomous driving, and robotics, he has led multiple products to successful commercialization. Chief Strategy Officer Vincent, an expert in multimodal learning and serial entrepreneur, has led multiple startups to leapfrog development; formerly holding key technical positions at Huawei and Baidu, he possesses exceptional strategic vision and technology commercialization capabilities. Chairman Zhenyu Li formerly served as president of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Business Group, leading the creation of the Apollo autonomous driving open platform and the world's largest unmanned ride-hailing service platform "Luobo Kuaipao," making him a leading figure in China's autonomous driving.
The TARS founding team will leverage its rich experience in successfully building star-level AI products and technologies to lead the company in focusing on developing innovative embodied intelligence technology products, injecting new vitality into industry development.
Zhenyu Li, founder and chairman of TARS, stated, "Relying on a mature intelligent hardware industry chain foundation, continuously upgrading AI technology reserves, combined with rich application scenarios and a top-tier talent resource matrix, the embodied intelligence field is in a stage of rapid development. We thank our investors for their trust and support. The TARS team will always maintain its entrepreneurial初心, respect the fundamental laws of entrepreneurship, and looks forward to working together with global embodied intelligence enterprises to accelerate breakthroughs in key core technologies and promote sustainable development of the embodied intelligence industry."
Currently, TARS's core team has been fully assembled, and employees have officially moved into the Shanghai office. The company is actively recruiting for R&D positions, seeking candidates with a fighting spirit, extreme pursuit of technology and products, and growth potential.
About TARS
TARS (Tashi Zhihang) was formally established on February 5, 2025, as a truly AI-driven embodied intelligence technology company. TARS's mission is to build trustworthy super embodied intelligence systems centered on physical-world AI and general robotics technology, enabling high-performance AI to integrate into human society's production and life at scale. TARS's vision is to become a global leader in embodied intelligence.
About BlueRun Ventures
BlueRun Ventures originated in Silicon Valley and has been deeply rooted in China for nearly 20 years, currently one of the largest early-stage funds domestically, consistently generating investment returns far above average. BlueRun Ventures is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs who dare to redefine the future through technology, with coverage spanning artificial intelligence, hard tech, consumer technology, biotech, and other fields, having cumulatively invested in over 200 startups and providing long-cycle support to entrepreneurs from early stages.
TARS Recruitment Contact
Email: hr@tars-ai.com
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