Linear Capital's Series A exclusive investment project *Datablau* has completed its Series B1 funding round, with existing shareholder Linear Capital continuing its support.

Datablau recently announced the completion of its B1 funding round. The round was led by Koala Fund, with Linear Capital, the sole investor in the company's Series A round, following on as an existing shareholder. Index Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. Following this round, Datablau will further accelerate its strategic industry layout and build an AI-powered data asset intelligence platform based on large language models, integrating AI with core data governance business scenarios. The company has also formulated plans for going public.

Wang Cheng, founder and CEO of Datablau, said: "Despite the weak macroeconomic environment, Datablau has maintained strong growth, achieving a 180% growth rate in 2022 and continuing to sustain high-speed growth of over 100% in the first half of 2023.

On one hand, this is due to the government's vigorous promotion of data elements and data exchange, which has continuously strengthened the importance of data assets and activated demand for data governance. All industries need to reduce costs and increase efficiency, open new revenue streams and cut expenses, and even transform their business models through digital transformation. All of this requires solid infrastructure built through data governance.

On the other hand, as the saying goes, to forge iron you need a strong hammer — a good product is hard currency. A company's survival ultimately depends on its products and technology to win the market and customers, protect profit margins, and secure sufficient cash flow. Datablau has always emphasized pushing technical expertise to the extreme and innovating in product and services, pursuing quality growth and returning to the essence of business.

In a cooling capital environment where most investment institutions are lying low, this funding round for Datablau with Koala Fund and Linear Capital stands out as a bright spot in the big data, enterprise services, and software sectors. Datablau will continue to work diligently and pragmatically on the path of 'empowering enterprise digital transformation through data governance,' helping enterprises achieve high-quality data asset management products and services through data governance, and continuously driving the development and progress of digital transformation across society."

Dai Wei, partner at Koala Fund, said: "We have long been focused on investment opportunities brought by digitalization, and data governance is one of the foundational needs of digital infrastructure construction. Datablau possesses advanced concepts and rich experience, and has built out a highly standardized product matrix. In particular, its proprietary data modeling tool is positioned to become core infrastructure for enterprise customers' data governance. We believe Datablau can leverage its deep understanding of data governance and highly competitive products to continue providing quality products and services for customers' digital construction and maintain its leading position in the industry."

Zheng Can, director at Linear Capital, said: "Over the past three years, we have witnessed the company's rapid growth, continuous product upgrades, and solid business development. We believe that as a leading enterprise in China's data governance sector, Datablau is well positioned to help a large number of Chinese enterprises truly understand and utilize data, achieving data-driven business operations."

Wei Wei, director at Index Capital, the exclusive financial advisor for this round, said: "Data has ascended to become a core production material for modern enterprises, driving an explosion in data governance demand. As an industry leader, the Datablau team has built a standardized full-stack data governance platform for leading customers across industries based on advanced product concepts and solid technical foundations, comprehensively enhancing data governance capabilities. The company's ability to achieve rapid breakthroughs in performance and funding despite challenging economic and capital conditions demonstrates the strong certainty of both the sector and the business."

Regarding Datablau's successful funding round, existing shareholder WI Harper also expressed congratulations and expectations for the company's future development.

Yu Xiaofeng, VP at WI Harper, said: "Digital intelligence is one of WI Harper's key focus areas. As a critical production factor, data capabilities are gradually becoming a core competitive advantage for enterprises going forward, highlighting the importance of data governance capabilities. As a pioneer in this field, Datablau possesses deep industry understanding and technical accumulation, and has developed a one-stop data governance solution. Through full-link data management capabilities, it helps enterprises achieve efficient data production, high-quality data management, and highly intelligent data usage. We will continue to support the company in empowering more enterprises' digital transformation."

Datablau is a pioneer and leader in China's data governance sector, having innovatively launched a new-generation data governance product system centered on data models, truly achieving end-to-end integrated data governance. Driven by enterprises' actual pain points and needs, Datablau has continuously refined and upgraded its products and light consulting services. In 2023, it released Datablau DDM 6.5 (Data Model Management and Control Platform), DAM 6.5 (Data Asset Management Platform), DDC 6.5 (Data Asset Catalog Service Platform), DDS 6.5 (Data Security Management Platform), and other product series and consulting implementation services, building a full-stack data governance product and service matrix spanning from ex-ante model control to ex-post data asset inventory to data asset value output, and constructing a one-stop, intelligent data governance solution to fully safeguard enterprises' steady progress on their digital journey.

Datablau remains committed to unleashing the value of data elements through technological innovation, continuously empowering enterprise customers to accelerate digital transformation, improve operational efficiency, and unlock new business growth potential. After more than six years of practice and exploration, Datablau's business has continued to expand rapidly, deeply serving industries including financial services, intelligent manufacturing, energy, logistics, education, and government, and helping 200+ large enterprise customers achieve data service capabilities driven by data governance, enabling enterprises to sustain business innovation and achieve sustainable development.

It is precisely through its innovation in product technology and commercialization advantages that Datablau has repeatedly stood out to gain recognition from international authoritative institutions. It was successfully selected as a representative vendor for Data Asset Management in Gartner's Hype Cycle for Data, Analytics and AI in China, 2023, and was also the only vendor in the Asia-Pacific region selected for Forrester NowTech's global MLDC (Machine Learning-Based Data Catalog).

Looking ahead, Datablau will continue to increase R&D investment, explore transformative data governance technologies in the AIGC era, and integrate these technologies with enterprise customer scenarios to continuously create value for enterprises through innovative products and services!

About Linear Capital

Linear Capital is an early-stage investment firm focused on "frontier technology + industry" opportunities — frontier technologies represented by data intelligence, digital new infrastructure, next-generation robotics, and technological transformation in traditional sectors (such as biomedicine, materials, and energy), applied across vertical industries to substantially improve industrial efficiency, empower the resolution of pain points, and complete industrial upgrading. Through substantial increases in industrial value, the firm achieves excess returns in commercial value. It currently manages ten funds with total assets under management of approximately $2 billion.

Our investment stage focuses primarily on leading angel to Series A rounds, with typical investment amounts of $3 million to $8 million or equivalent RMB per project.

To date, we have made early-stage investments in over 120 startup teams including Horizon Robotics, Kujiale, Sensors Data, Tezign, Rokid, Guandata, Agile Robots, and others. The combined valuation of Linear Capital's portfolio companies is approximately $20 billion.

In the near term, Linear Capital is working to become the best "Data Intelligence Technology Fund," and over the long term, gradually build itself into the most influential "Frontier Technology Application Fund."