3.9 billion. The largest early-stage fundraising this year has emerged.

An iconic moment has arrived in early-stage investment.

Pedaily has learned that today (April 13), BlueRun Ventures officially announced the successful closing of its fourth dual-currency fund, with a total size of approximately $560 million (about RMB 3.9 billion). This has set a new record for the fundraising of early-stage dual-currency funds in China this year. So far, the total assets under management of BlueRun Ventures are approaching RMB 20 billion, firmly placing it among the largest early-stage funds in China.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of BlueRun's presence in China. Founded in Silicon Valley in 1998, BlueRun Ventures started to establish a foothold in China in 2005. Victor Cheng single-handedly built the BlueRun China team. To date, BlueRun Ventures has become a prime example of the localization of US dollar VC in China and a landmark force among early-stage VCs.

In April in Beijing, in the office of BlueRun Ventures located in China World Office Building, Pedaily had an in-depth conversation with Victor Cheng, the managing partner of BlueRun Ventures. The latest fundraising of RMB 3.9 billion naturally served as the impetus for this dialogue. Having experienced various market cycles, this Singaporean of Chaoshan origin still remains active at the forefront of China's investment scene, while many of his contemporaries have already withdrawn from the stage.

He is amazed by the explosion of AI technology in China. As witnessed in BlueRun's remarkable AI layout in recent years, the firm captured several super projects such as Galaxy Universal, Zhipu Robotics, Hidden Side, and Genspark at their early stages. Looking back now, BlueRun Ventures was among the first to act before the dawn of the AI era.

Wind Vane

A New Record for Early-Stage Fundraising This Year

Victor Cheng walked in leisurely.

He had just finished an online communication with LPs. The A4 paper in his hand was filled with notes, which were his special preparation for this conversation. Having traveled frequently between China and overseas for years, he naturally started the topic with US dollar fundraising. "It seems more like a psychological game than ever before," he said.

Victor Cheng

In early 2025, BlueRun Ventures initiated a new round of US dollar fundraising, facing significant challenges. Victor Cheng still remembers vividly that during this period, US dollar LPs were highly hesitant. This was due to various factors such as geopolitics and a more fundamental question: "Given the gap with the United States, does China still have a chance in AI?"

Convincing US dollar LPs is no easy task. "You clearly have good projects in hand, and the entrepreneurs you meet are all very outstanding. However, overseas investors may not be able to see clearly or even believe in them. You need to keep persuading them," Victor Cheng sighed.

The turning point is well-known. Subsequently, DeepSeek became a huge hit, unexpectedly triggering a wave of revaluation of Chinese technology assets. US dollar LPs began to look back at China consciously. Meanwhile, China's embodied intelligence industry was booming. As a result, the US dollar LPs who were still on the sidelines in the first half of the year started to show more interest in the second half.

Finally, BlueRun Ventures successfully closed its new US dollar fund, attracting international institutional capital, including sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, large financial institutions, and established family offices. In addition to traditional European and American capital, there are also new investors from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Japan.

On the other hand, BlueRun's new RMB fund has also been successfully closed ahead of schedule. It is reported that it took less than a year for BlueRun to complete the fundraising and final delivery of the RMB fund, and it even achieved oversubscription at one time. This is particularly remarkable given the sluggish RMB fundraising market in the past few years.

What's more noteworthy is that the new RMB fund has continued to maintain a high - quality and market - oriented LP base. It includes national - level funds, core regional government industrial funds such as the National SME Development Fund and Shanghai Guotou, mainstream financial institutions, top - tier market - oriented mother funds, well - known industrial players, and family offices. Most of the old LPs have reinvested, which speaks volumes.

"Although we exercised restraint, there was still some oversubscription." BlueRun has always attached great importance to "restraint" and this time it still chose to close the fund in a timely manner and actively control the final scale. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Victor Cheng deeply understands that early - stage funds should not be too large in scale, otherwise, they cannot generate the best returns. The scale should be kept moderate. If it is too small, it cannot support the team; if it is too large, it will face challenges in terms of returns, and the investment decisions may become lax, and management may also deviate.

Now that the funds are in place, BlueRun Ventures will continue to heavily invest in AI and hard technology. Specifically, the RMB fund will focus on cutting - edge technology fields that are in line with China's industrial policies, while the US dollar fund will focus more on international Chinese entrepreneurial projects and AI - themed projects. "Take it easy and be more patient," Victor Cheng firmly believes that there will be more and greater opportunities in the future.

Super AI Hunter

Galaxy Universal, Zhipu, Hidden Side, Genspark

Early - stage hunting is ingrained in BlueRun Ventures' DNA. Especially in recent years, when AI has become the most mainstream technological narrative in China's venture capital circle, BlueRun's numerous and accurate investments have left a deep impression on its peers. If restraint in fundraising is BlueRun's "defense," then its extensive layout in AI is its sharpest "offense."

As early as the beginning of 2021, BlueRun noticed the investment opportunities in large - scale models. By 2022, when ChatGPT emerged, BlueRun's internal judgment was that China would definitely have its own large - scale models, firmly believing that AI is a greater technological revolution than the mobile Internet. Subsequently, the team quickly responded and increased its investment in AI. At that time, the domestic venture capital industry was generally shrinking, but BlueRun still made frequent investments, backed by a clear methodology - not chasing hot spots, but making heavy bets when there is a non - consensus view. Once they believe in a project, they adhere to multi - round follow - on investments.

From left to right: Victor Cheng, Zhu Tianyu, Cao Wei (Photo taken in 2010)

Opportunities often come and go quickly. Looking back today, BlueRun Ventures has become one of the very few early - stage funds in China that have captured leading unicorns in all three major fields of AI model layer, AI agents, and embodied intelligence.

Just as BlueRun Ventures is the seed - round investor of Galaxy Universal.

It all started with a meeting three years ago. In early 2023, Wang He and his founding team wanted to launch a robotics project. However, they didn't want to build simple robots but to deeply utilize large - scale models, which coincided with Victor Cheng's judgment. Soon, Victor Cheng met with Wang He. What was supposed to be a one - hour communication unexpectedly turned into a four - hour in - depth discussion. "We even skipped dinner," Victor Cheng said. After the conversation, he decided to invest in Galaxy Universal.

At that time, most domestic robotics companies were focusing on the robot body. However, Wang He had long thought about how to combine the "brain" and the body to create a more intelligent robot. "The common challenge for robots at that time was the lack of real - machine data. Galaxy mainly obtained training data through simulation, which was quite attractive to me. At that time, only they could solve the 'chicken - and - egg' problem step by step," Victor Cheng recalled. Since then, BlueRun Ventures has made multiple - round investments and has become one of the most important early - stage investors in Galaxy Universal.

Almost at the same time, Zhipu Robotics came into the sight of the BlueRun team.

Initially, Zhipu focused more on the robot body. The BlueRun team was somewhat hesitant at first, believing that the combination of the "brain," "cerebellum," and hardware body was the future. Simply focusing on the body and cerebellum might have short - term explosive power but would face growth bottlenecks in long - term productivity scenarios that require high autonomy. Fortunately, Deng Taihua, an experienced veteran from Huawei, iterated very quickly. He and Peng Zhihui (Zhi Huijun) led Zhipu to evolve, adding the world model and building and deploying the "brain" team. Soon, Cao Wei, a partner at BlueRun, noticed this change and, together with Victor Cheng and Zhu Tianyu, met with Zhipu in Shanghai. The two sides quickly reached an agreement. In August 2023, BlueRun became an investor in Zhipu Robotics' Series A1 round and has since made four consecutive follow - on investments.

Investing in Galaxy on one hand and Zhipu on the other, BlueRun Ventures has also invested in star companies such as TARS, Zhijian Dynamics, Lingchu Intelligence, and Hillbot in the embodied intelligence track, gradually expanding its investment map.

BlueRun Ventures' investment in Hidden Side in the field of large - scale AI models is an excellent example of its early - stage investment methodology of focusing on people. Victor Cheng mentioned an internal judgment: China will definitely have its own large - scale models, but whether they can succeed ultimately depends on the density of talent, computing resources, and data resources. In the early stage, the most critical factor is the density of talent, especially the density of genius scientists.

Following this logic, BlueRun participated in Hidden Side's Series A financing in 2023. There was a fierce debate at the internal investment decision - making meeting. The key reason for the final investment decision was the founder of Hidden Side, Yang Zhilin. This Carnegie Mellon University computer science Ph.D., who studied under the head of Apple's AI department, is also the most highly - cited researcher in the field of NLP under 35 years old in China.

Why choose Yang Zhilin over other large - scale model entrepreneurs? Victor Cheng still remembers clearly: "We met at least 6 - 7 companies, and all the founders were very outstanding and charismatic. However, one sentence that Yang Zhilin repeatedly said impressed me. He said he wanted to build the world's best AI large - scale model, not just the best in China. Anything short of AGI is just decoration. Later, he also proved his words with actions."

Moreover, Zhu Tianyu, the managing partner, also asked rhetorically at the investment decision - making meeting: "Yang Zhilin's dream of AGI started during his time at CMU. Counting on your fingers, how many young people had more than ten thousand hours of love and practice in AGI before this wave of AI entrepreneurship?"

All these factors strengthened BlueRun's early - stage bet on Hidden Side. "Supporting such passion is the essence of early - stage investment." Since the beginning of this year, the valuation of Hidden Side has skyrocketed and is reported to have reached $18 billion (about RMB 120 billion).

At present, AI applications are experiencing explosive growth. As early as January 2024, BlueRun invested in the angel - round financing of Genspark. The latter is a Chinese - founded startup based in Silicon Valley and Singapore, co - founded by Jing Kun, the former CEO of Xiaodu, and Zhu Kaihua, the former CTO of Xiaodu. In 2025, it launched a new feature called Super Agent. Recently, Genspark announced that its ARR exceeded $250 million 11 months after its launch and doubled in just the past two months. At the same time, it raised $385 million in its Series B financing. In addition, BlueRun has also invested in AI application projects such as Vivix, Yiweiwu, Daqian Technology, and Trooly, as well as enterprise intelligent agent companies such as Fengqing Technology and Yuanli Intelligence. Meanwhile, in strategic and cutting - edge fields such as advanced computing, brain - computer interfaces, and AI4Science, BlueRun has also made early - stage investments in several projects such as Zhongqi Wuliang, Taichu Data, and Kaiwuj i.

Looking around, BlueRun has drawn a detailed map focusing on various AI sub - sectors. Whether it is Zhipu Robotics, Galaxy Universal, Hidden Side, or Genspark, they have all demonstrated the ability of AI to generate benefits and achieve high - growth business results. The early - stage investments are starting to bear fruit.

Market Recovery This Year: Keeping a Cool Head in Investments

The boat has sailed past countless mountains, and the domestic primary market is now showing signs of recovery.

Recalling 2022, the market sentiment took a sudden turn for the worse, and the entire venture capital circle was deeply worried. During that period, the most frequent words Victor Cheng said to his internal team were: "Don't be pessimistic. We can make a comeback."

However, the power behind these words goes far beyond just an optimistic attitude.

In Victor Cheng's view, there are always optimistic people in the market, and some may happen to get the market cycle right. What really drives him to go against the trend again and again in the cold winter is a deeper emotion - unwillingness.

"My grandfather's generation left Chaoshan for Southeast Asia with nothing. They weren't just being optimistic; they had no other choice," Victor Cheng said. That sense of unwillingness comes from the frustration of being undervalued in difficult situations. In his memory, the "Red - Headed Boat Spirit" deeply rooted in the Chaoshan people has never been blind optimism but a survival instinct and resilience to fight in desperate situations. In his generation, this instinct has taken on a new form - an unwillingness to see Chinese entrepreneurs' talents being undervalued and a belief that they can break through the glass ceiling in global competition.

"I started investing in VC in Silicon Valley, the United States, in 2000. In eight years, I saw that Chinese technology talents were as excellent as, if not better than, other ethnic groups. However, due to cultural and environmental differences, they were severely undervalued and marginalized. They had to achieve more to get the same opportunities as others, which made me really unwilling. So when the AI revolution emerged in 2022, even though the domestic capital market was very pessimistic at that time and AI technology in China seemed to lag behind that of Europe and the United States, I believed that as long as these Chinese technology talents were given enough space and support, they could definitely achieve the same success as US AI unicorns and even lead the world in embodied intelligence, AI models, and applications one day." When Victor Cheng expressed this view to most LPs and the team in previous years, there were still many doubts. Even in 2024, to strengthen this view, he specifically set the theme of the fund's annual meeting as "Breaking the Quadrant."

This is the spiritual core of daring to bet against the trend and the underlying motivation for BlueRun to be among the first to act before the dawn of the AI era. It's not about gambling or luck; it's about being unwilling and thus daring to take the lead. The Red - Headed Boat Spirit has never been about waiting for the wind but creating it oneself.

Over the years, BlueRun Ventures has not been superstitious about "halos" and "titles" but has preferred entrepreneurs who can bring real productivity improvements. In Victor Cheng's view, BlueRun is looking for practical entrepreneurs with a "strong sense of mission." They not only need to have the courage to challenge world - class problems but also be able to transform technology into practical social benefits. In short, BlueRun invests not only in commercial value but also in the hard - core strength that can truly enhance China's future national power and global competitiveness.

As early as in the New Year's letter in 2022, BlueRun clearly stated that the dual - currency strategy must adapt to the profound changes brought about by the reshaping of the global landscape. As a result, with the support of national policies, top - notch Chinese entrepreneurs have welcomed a new opportunity to step onto the international stage.

Having witnessed the ups and downs of the market, Victor Cheng has summarized several insights - investment must be anchored in major trends. If there is no favorable trend, extreme restraint should be exercised, and one should never invest blindly. At the same time, one should stay sober when enjoying technological dividends and make a timely exit at the right moment to avoid missing opportunities due to greed.

Staying sober and avoiding greed are particularly relevant at this moment