TARS Secures $1.2 Billion in Angel Round for Intelligent Driving

An emerging company in the intelligent driving sector, TARS, has secured a significant investment of 1.2 billion dollars in its angel round, marking the largest such investment in the region this year. The funding was led by Blue Capital and Qiming Ventures, with participation from Linear Capital, Hengxu Capital, Hongtai Fund, Lenovo Capital, Xianghe Capital, and Hillhouse Capital. The funds will be primarily used to advance product development, technology research, model training, and the expansion of application scenarios.

TARS stands out as one of the few companies that integrate large model capabilities, body research, and the mass production of software and hardware products. The company has introduced a human-centric embodied data engine, enabling efficient data acquisition from the real world. This innovation is crucial for advancing AI in the physical world. Additionally, TARS has developed a large model that combines spatial perception and decision-making, aiming to create a data-driven, universally applicable intelligent system for the physical world, thereby accelerating the development of this technology.

The embodied intelligence sector, which includes humanoid robots and large embodied models, has attracted numerous automotive companies, related industry players, and leaders in the autonomous driving field. It has become a core force in this domain. This year alone, several companies, including Zhi Fang, Weita Power, Xinghai Map, and Amiro Robot, have emerged, each led by former key personnel from major tech companies and securing substantial investments. These companies, along with TARS, are making significant strides in the embodied intelligence field.

The leadership team at TARS is composed of industry veterans. The CEO, Dr. Chen Yiren, is a prominent figure in the fields of embodied intelligence and autonomous driving. He has held key positions at Tsinghua University, Huawei, and DJI. The Chief Scientist, Dr. Ding Wenchao, is a young talent in the field of embodied intelligence and a researcher at Fudan University. He has led the development of Huawei's end-to-end decision network for intelligent driving and created Fudan University's first prototype humanoid robot. The Chief Architect, Chen Tongqing, holds a PhD from Tsinghua University and has led multiple products to commercial success in industries such as industrial manufacturing, AI, autonomous driving, and robotics. The Chief Strategy Officer, Vincent, is an expert in multimodal learning and has led several startups to breakthrough growth. He has also held key technical positions at Huawei and Baidu. The Chairman, Li Zhenyu, previously served as the President of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group, where he led the creation of the Apollo autonomous driving platform and the largest autonomous driving service platform, "Roubao Quick Run."

With a team of industry experts, TARS is poised to develop innovative embodied intelligence technology products. The company's core strengths lie in its unique combination of large embodied model capabilities, body research, and the mass production of software and hardware products. TARS has pioneered a new development model for embodied intelligence, creating a human-centric embodied data engine that has significantly advanced the collection of embodied data from the real world, driving the continuous development of AI in the physical world. Furthermore, the company has introduced an embodied large model that integrates spatial perception and decision-making, accelerating the development of embodied intelligence technology.

TARS is actively recruiting for research and development positions and has already established an office in Shanghai. The company's founder and chairman, Li Zhenyu, expressed optimism about the future of embodied intelligence, stating that with a mature intelligent hardware industry chain, continuously upgrading AI technology reserves, rich application scenarios, and a top-tier talent matrix, the embodied intelligence sector is in a rapid development phase. TARS is committed to adhering to its entrepreneurial spirit, following basic entrepreneurial principles, and collaborating with global embodied intelligence companies to accelerate the development of key core technologies, promoting the sustainable development of the embodied intelligence industry.