BlueRun Ventures Leads Exclusive Investment in Huayu Tongruan's Tens-of-Millions RMB Series A1 Round | BlueRun Ventures

High-performance, independently controllable communication middleware has become one of the core requirements for the development of intelligent vehicles.

Recently, Huayu Tongruan announced the completion of its Series A1 funding round worth tens of millions of RMB, with BlueRun Ventures as the sole investor. The proceeds will support Huayu's continued investment in R&D and team expansion for intelligent driving, while accelerating the mass production and deployment of its intelligent driving foundational software products, led by its "Swift" communication middleware. BlueRun Ventures stated: As the automotive industry rapidly advances toward intelligence, connectivity, electrification, and shared mobility, achieving "software-defined vehicles" requires automotive software built on new EE architectures to be replaced and upgraded by more modern software middleware platforms. Huayu Tongruan is committed to becoming a world-class intelligent vehicle software product company. Its automotive middleware products, particularly its fully autonomous and controllable automotive communication middleware based on OMG DDS, have gained recognition from OEMs and various partners and have now entered large-scale mass production. The team possesses deep expertise and hands-on experience in foundational software, next-generation technology stacks, automotive EE architectures, and systems. BlueRun is pleased to be an investor in Huayu Tongruan's Series A1 round and looks forward to Huayu Tongruan leading the development of China's automotive foundational software industry and expanding globally.

Under the trend of "software-defined vehicles," building centralized electronic and electrical architectures and SOA software architectures has become the direction of evolution for intelligent vehicles. The coordination between different domain controllers, the development and integration of intelligent driving applications, and whole-vehicle OTA all place higher demands on data communication for intelligent vehicles, bringing a series of new challenges that urgently need to be addressed — such as high-performance communication in complex scenarios, decoupling of software and hardware architectures, and security guarantees during communication. As a core foundational technology in the intelligent driving field, high-performance communication middleware is key to solving these problems. Similar to chips and operating systems, fully autonomous and controllable high-performance communication middleware has become one of the core needs for the development of China's intelligent vehicles.

Founded in 2020, Huayu has remained focused on the R&D and innovation of intelligent driving foundational software. In 2021, Huayu released "Swift" communication middleware (Greenstone SWIFT DDS), China's first fully self-developed communication middleware based on the DDS standard, which enables multi-node communication in intelligent vehicles while ensuring the secure, real-time, and reliable transmission of critical data, facilitating rapid development and efficient deployment of upper-layer applications and supporting massive multi-source heterogeneous data communication for intelligent driving. OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers can build loosely coupled, easily scalable communication system architectures based on "Swift" communication middleware, further enabling rapid transition toward centralized electronic and electrical architectures and providing better underlying architectural support for future "software-defined vehicles."

Since completing its Series A funding in 2021, Huayu has accelerated product development and implementation. Currently, "Swift" communication middleware can run on mainstream application processors such as ARM A-core and X86, as well as resource-constrained computing units such as MCU, M-core, and R-core, and can be adapted to middleware and real-time operating systems including AUTOSAR AP, AUTOSAR CP, VxWorks, QNX, and FreeRTOS. Leveraging its strong foundational software R&D capabilities, local engineering implementation expertise, and deep understanding of the evolution of intelligent driving electronic and electrical architectures, Huayu has quickly garnered significant attention and recognition within the industry, securing designated projects from multiple leading domestic and international OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in the first half of this year, accelerating the mass production and deployment across different vehicle models and platforms. Shaochen Zhong, Co-founder and CEO of Huayu, stated: "Facing the rapid transformation of automotive electronic and electrical architectures and the evolution of software architecture toward SOA, Huayu is committed to providing customers with a rich product portfolio at the foundational software level, helping OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers rapidly and efficiently build intelligent driving software architectures and further accelerating the mass production of intelligent vehicles. This year, Huayu will push forward at full speed with mass production projects, helping more automotive industry customers develop intelligent automotive products and empowering the development of China's intelligent driving through fully autonomous and controllable core underlying technologies."

Further Reading

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BlueRun Ventures Wins Multiple Awards Including ChinaVenture Annual Best Early-Stage VC TOP3 and Best Returns TOP10

BlueRun Ventures was established in Silicon Valley in 1998. BlueRun Ventures China was founded 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 focuses on Pre-A and Series A investments, covering hard tech and innovative interaction, enterprise technology, new consumer, and healthcare sectors. It has invested in over 150 startups, including Li Auto, Waterdrop, QingCloud, Guazi.com, Qudian, Songguo Mobility, Ganji.com, Energy Monster, Yuntu Semiconductor, Machenike, Yunsheng Intelligence, Anxin Network Shield, and BioMap.

BlueRun Ventures has been ranked first in Zero2IPO's "Top 30 Early-Stage Investment Institutions in China" and ChinaVenture's "Top 30 Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Institutions in China," and was named among Preqin's Top 10 venture capital fund managers globally for consistent high returns.

Additionally, BlueRun Ventures has received consecutive recognition from media organizations including Forbes China, 36Kr, Cyzone, Caixin Media, CBNweekly, and Jiemian, earning titles such as "China's Best Early-Stage Institution of the Year," "China's Top Venture Capital Firm," "Most Entrepreneur-Friendly Early-Stage Institution of the Year," and "Most Influential Early-Stage Institution of the Year."