BlueRun Ventures Leads $10 Million Angel Round for Emerging Consumer Electronics Brand Oladance | BlueRun Ventures
First globally proposed the OWS (Open Wearable Stereo) concept of open-fit wearable spatial audio.
Emerging consumer electronics brand oladance has recently closed a multi-million-dollar angel round, led by BlueRun Ventures and Black Ant Capital, with Fengqiao Capital also participating. Proceeds will go toward technology and new product R&D, supply chain upgrades, consumer services, and brand building.
BlueRun Ventures stated: The oladance team brings top-tier product development and operations experience from leading international companies. They have a distinctive read on industry trends and a proven track record of repeatedly creating hit products. They originated the highly scalable OWS (Open Wearable Stereo) category system, and their debut product has achieved market reception on par with top-tier international brands, combining high comfort with excellent sound quality. As the lead investor in oladance's angel round, BlueRun believes the company can continue building blockbuster products based on open-ear audio technology and unlock new forms of innovative headphone interaction.
01
A Tech-Forward Breakthrough
oladance is an innovation-driven consumer electronics brand founded in 2019 by former BOSE executive Haoqian Li alongside several BOSE engineers. As a global pioneer in open-ear audio, innovation is the brand's driving force. In 2021, oladance became the first in the world to propose the OWS (Open Wearable Stereo) concept, creating an entirely new wearable device category and launching its first-generation product in 2022. The product quickly gained global traction with its imperceptible wear, open-ear design, speaker-grade sound, and ultra-long battery life — earning Amazon's 2022 Innovation Brand of the Year. Revenue is projected to exceed 1 billion RMB in 2024.
Just last week, on July 26 U.S. time, oladance appeared as a guest on the YouTube live channel of international tech authority Wired, where they discussed the OWS Pro — their latest flagship featuring another technological leap. The upgraded OWS Pro represents oladance's most significant offering to the headphone space since the OWS 1, injecting momentum into what has been a relatively stagnant market.
OWS defines a new category of audio wearable that bridges home theater systems and traditional headphones, breakthrough technology that fuses the expansive, comfortable soundstage of home cinema with the portability of conventional earphones. oladance believes its emergence will disrupt existing headphone design and eventually replace the majority of headphones on the market.
02
Meeting Demand, Opening the Future
In today's mobile internet era, headphone form factors and categories abound. Looking across the market, most Bluetooth earphones are in-ear models — true wireless earbuds using TWS (True Wireless Stereo) technology from phone makers like Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi. Yet common in-ear TWS designs can cause ear damage and hygiene issues with prolonged use, and create an uncomfortable "stethoscope effect" during exercise. Meanwhile, bone conduction headphones suffer from poor audio quality, ear clamping, and potential bone-impact damage to the ear.
With this insight, oladance placed health and comfort at the top of its user priorities. Founder Haoqian Li stated, "There will be many disruptive product innovations in headphones going forward, but 'open-ear is the future' — we're convinced OWS is the product direction that will replace existing headphone form factors."
Li began exploring the feasibility of open-ear headphones in 2018, when technological conditions were not yet mature enough to balance sound quality with user experience. The 2019 launch of AirPods Pro marked an industry inflection point — advances in chip packaging and computing power enabled a single earphone to integrate power management, touch controls, Bluetooth, and other complex processes. oladance chose the open-listening path, accepting the complex acoustic environments that came with it. The brand's pioneering "OWS" (Open Wearable Stereo) technology provides a solution for comfortable, extended wear in open settings. The suspended design sits outside the ear canal without blocking it, while the fully elastic ear hook accommodates different ear shapes with ample give. Drawing on ergonomic multi-point support principles to distribute pressure, users feel featherlight comfort while avoiding canal pain, bacteria buildup, and fatigue from long sessions. Skin contact — often overlooked in headphone design — received particular attention: oladance OWS headphones use soft silicone on skin-touching surfaces for a more conforming, gentle fit.
03
Cutting-Edge Technology, Breaking Through on Multiple Fronts
oladance's "OWS fully open-ear headphones" represent a high degree of miniaturization of small speaker functionality, positioned as "wearable personal sound systems." The OWS 1 was the industry's first to incorporate a public-address chip typically found in speakers, while the newly launched flagship OWS Pro breaks new ground by combining two drivers into a single overlapping speaker while maintaining compact size — effectively doubling sound quality within the same volume.
In the OWS domain, sound generation is itself undergoing quiet revolution: The OWS 1 employs a 16.5mm diameter driver unit, using EQ algorithms for dynamic monitoring and calculation, synthesizing multiple sound sources into a composite source and dynamically processing phase relationships to direct sound into the ear. Proprietary intelligent bass algorithm compensation suppresses external sound dispersion while enhancing detail in the transmitted audio.
Meanwhile, oladance's patented energy lock technology delivers 19 hours of continuous use on a single charge, extending to 114 hours with the charging case — fully capable even in extreme outdoor environments.
04
Innovation and Transformation, Health as Foundation
oladance adheres to a people-first brand philosophy, protecting consumer hearing health through continuous technological innovation. OWS headphones, with their fully open design and innovative audio technology, deliver a distinctive musical experience. The OWS Pro features oladance's self-developed "Super Smart Bone" hearing protection patent technology, safeguarding users' hearing health through millisecond-level monitoring of sound energy exposure and dynamic EQ adjustment — protecting ears without compromising sound quality.
05
Funding Fuels a New Chapter
Innovation in the open-ear headphone space has enabled oladance to rapidly expand global market channels. Following crowdfunding success, the brand launched on Amazon, established its own direct-to-consumer site, and entered over 30 countries and regions worldwide.
Domestically, OWS initially reached consumers through flagship stores on Tmall, JD.com, and other major e-commerce platforms, and this year began exploring offline distribution — entering over 1,000 retail points in just six weeks.
On the heels of these notable achievements, oladance has secured its angel round, led by BlueRun Ventures and Black Ant Capital with Fengqiao Capital participating. Going forward, the brand will work with partners to explore more opportunities to accelerate innovation, expand brand influence, meet user needs, and lead industry trends. oladance is confident that sustained development and innovation will bring users superior audio experiences while driving progress across the entire industry.
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Founded in Silicon Valley in 2005, BlueRun Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups.
The firm currently manages multiple USD and RMB dual-currency funds in China, with assets under management exceeding 15 billion RMB, making it one of the largest early-stage funds domestically. BlueRun invests primarily at Pre-A and Series A stages across hard tech and innovative interaction, enterprise technology, new consumption, and healthcare. It has backed over 150 startups including Li Auto, Waterdrop, QingCloud, Guazi.com, Qudian, Songguo Mobility, Ganji.com, Energy Monster, Yuntone Semiconductor, Machenike, Cloud Saint Intelligence, Anxin Network Shield, and BioMap.
BlueRun Ventures has been ranked #1 on Zero2IPO's "China Early-Stage Investment Firms Top 30" and ChinaVenture's "China Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Firms Top 30," and named among Preqin's Top 10 VC fund managers globally for sustained high returns.
The firm has also received consecutive honors from Forbes China, 36Kr, Cyzone, Caixin Media, CBNweekly, Jiemian, and other media as "China Early-Stage Firm of the Year," "China Top-Tier Venture Capital Firm," "Most Entrepreneur-Friendly Early-Stage Firm," and "Most Influential Early-Stage Firm."