Tashi Zhihang Raises $120 Million in Angel Round, Co-Led by Qiming Venture Partners
Tashi Zhihang is the only company in the industry that simultaneously possesses Embodied Artificial Intelligence large model capabilities, in-house robotics R&D capabilities, and mass production capacity for integrated hardware-software products.
Embodied Artificial Intelligence has a major new entrant. On March 26, embodied AI startup Tashi Zhihang (TARS) announced the completion of a $120 million angel round, marking the beginning of its journey in embodied AI entrepreneurship. This round was co-led by Qiming Venture Partners. Tashi Zhihang has set a record for the largest angel round in China's embodied AI industry. The funding will primarily be used for product and technology R&D, model training, and scenario expansion.
"Tashi Zhihang's mission is to build trustworthy super embodied intelligence systems centered on physical-world AI and general-purpose robotics, enabling high-performance AI to integrate into human production and life at scale," said Yilun Chen, founder and CEO of Tashi Zhihang. Chen believes that embodied AI will become a key engine for global industrial upgrading over the next decade. Tashi Zhihang will continue pushing the boundaries of intelligence in the physical world and exploring the unlimited potential of embodied AI.
Tashi Zhihang was officially established on February 5, 2025. It is uniquely positioned in the industry as a company simultaneously possessing embodied AI large-model capabilities, hardware R&D capabilities, and the ability to mass-produce integrated software-hardware products. On the technology front, Tashi Zhihang has pioneered a new paradigm for embodied AI development, creating the industry's first Human-Centric embodied data engine that enables a leap forward in real-world embodied data acquisition — injecting strong momentum into the continued evolution of physical-world AI. At the same time, the company has also developed the industry's first spatial perception and reasoning decision-making integrated embodied large model, accelerating embodied AI toward its GPT moment by building a data-driven, generalizable universal physical-world intelligence system.
On the team side, Tashi Zhihang's founding team has been hailed by the industry as a "luxury dream team combination" and the "strongest full-stack AI team" in embodied AI to date. CEO Yilun Chen is a leading figure in China's embodied AI and autonomous driving technology and industry, having previously served as chief scientist for intelligent robotics at the Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) at Tsinghua University, CTO of autonomous driving at Huawei, and chief engineer of machine vision at DJI. Chief Scientist Wenchao Ding, a former Huawei "Genius Youth" hire, is a young scientist in embodied AI and a researcher at Fudan University's Robotics Research Institute. He led the development of Huawei's end-to-end autonomous driving decision network from scratch and built Fudan's first humanoid robot. Chief Architect Tongqing Chen, a Tsinghua PhD and chief scientist of a national major project, previously served as head of intelligent navigation at Huawei ADS and chief technical expert in spatial perception, with deep expertise across industrial manufacturing, AI, autonomous driving, and robotics, having led multiple products to commercial success. Chief Strategy Officer Vincent, an expert in multimodal learning and serial entrepreneur who has led multiple startups through transformative growth, previously held key technical roles at Huawei and Baidu and possesses exceptional strategic vision and technology commercialization capabilities. Chairman Zhenyu Li previously served as president of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group, where he spearheaded the development of the Apollo autonomous driving open platform and "Luobo Kuaipao," currently the world's largest autonomous ride-hailing service platform, making him a leading figure in China's autonomous driving industry.
Tashi Zhihang's founding team will leverage its extensive experience in successfully building star-level AI products and technologies to lead the company in focusing on developing innovative embodied AI products and injecting new vitality into the industry's development.
Tashi Zhihang's angel round investors are all top-tier industry institutions, combining industrial insight with empowerment capabilities. Their strategic vision ensures that Tashi Zhihang gained access to industry-leading resources from its very first funding round.
"Qiming Venture Partners began systematically deploying in artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous driving ten years ago," said Alex Zhou, managing partner at Qiming Venture Partners. "We have accompanied companies in these fields through their growth, witnessing from the industry forefront the gradual integration of AI technology with the physical world and the continuous breakthroughs in algorithms and hardware. China boasts strong R&D capabilities in artificial intelligence, abundant talent, the world's most complete hardware ecosystem, rich application scenarios, and enormous market potential — giving it an excellent opportunity to cultivate embodied AI and robotics enterprises with strong global competitiveness and industry leadership. Entrepreneurship in this field requires not only deep insight into frontier technology trends but also extensive experience in engineering, productization, and mass production. We believe Tashi Zhihang is one of the few excellent teams in the industry with complete capabilities."
"Relying on a mature intelligent hardware supply chain foundation, continuously upgrading AI technology reserves, combined with rich application scenarios and top-tier talent resources, the embodied AI field is in a stage of rapid development," said Zhenyu Li, founder and chairman of Tashi Zhihang. "We thank our investors for their trust and support. The Tashi Zhihang team will always maintain our entrepreneurial original aspirations, respect the fundamental laws of entrepreneurship, and look forward to working together with global embodied AI enterprises to accelerate breakthroughs in key core technologies and promote sustainable development of the embodied AI industry."
Tashi Zhihang's core team has now been fully assembled, with employees officially moving into its 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.
This round was co-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.
Past Highlights
Qiming Weekly | Qiming Venture Partners Portfolio Funding and Updates Vol. 10, 2025
Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management of $9.5 billion. Since its inception, the firm has focused on investing in outstanding early and growth-stage companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare sectors.
To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns.
Many Qiming Venture Partners portfolio companies have grown into the most influential companies in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ:BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE:ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ:SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), Berry Genomics (000710.SZ), SinocellTech (688520.SH), Yuanxin Technology, ClinChoice, Belief BioMed, and Biren Technology.