--- title: The man who built Qwen has a new lab, and the Shanghai... description: Junyang Lin, the former lead of Alibaba's Qwen models, has launched a new startup called Pragmatik Labs in Shanghai, five months after leaving Alibaba. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-man-who-built-qwen-has-a-new-lab-and-the-shanghai-government-is-an-investor-3hiwr4gta twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The man who built Qwen has a new lab, and the Shanghai government is an investor | daily.dev og:description: Junyang Lin, the former lead of Alibaba's Qwen models, has launched a new startup called Pragmatik Labs in Shanghai, five months after leaving Alibaba. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-man-who-built-qwen-has-a-new-lab-and-the-shanghai-government-is-an-investor-3hiwr4gta og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3HIwR4gTa.png og:image:alt: The man who built Qwen has a new lab, and the Shanghai government is an investor og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The man who built Qwen has a new lab, and the Shanghai government is an investor **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Junyang Lin, the former lead of Alibaba's Qwen models, has launched a new startup called Pragmatik Labs in Shanghai, five months after leaving Alibaba. The funding round was co-led by Gaorong Ventures and HSG (formerly Sequoia China), with Tencent also participating. Notably, an unreported backer emerged: the Shanghai Engine Fund (Shanghai Future Industries Fund), a $1.4bn state-run fund with a 15-year investment horizon, which no major outlet besides Lin's own social post disclosed. Pragmatik aims to build 'next-generation agents' spanning both digital knowledge work and physical-world robotics, the latter being the costlier bet given China's dominance in humanoid robot manufacturing. No model, product, or valuation has been confirmed, though a prior report pegged Lin's ask at a $2bn valuation. The launch fits a broader wave of elite researchers exiting major AI labs to start their own 'neolabs' amid a surge in Chinese AI funding and open-weight model competition. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Who founded Pragmatik Labs and what did they work on before? Junyang Lin, who led Alibaba's Qwen models, founded Pragmatik Labs in Shanghai after leaving Alibaba on March 4. He was an author on the original 2023 Qwen technical report and a core contributor to Qwen2.5. He holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and a master's in linguistics from Peking University, and joined Alibaba's DAMO Academy in 2019. _Developers tracking who's building the next wave of AI agent platforms can follow founder moves like this on daily.dev._ ### Who invested in Junyang Lin's new startup Pragmatik Labs? Gaorong Ventures and HSG (formerly Sequoia China) co-led the funding round, with Tencent also participating. A previously unreported backer was the Shanghai Engine Fund, a 10 billion yuan (about $1.4bn) state fund financed entirely by the Shanghai government, unveiled in September 2024 with a 15-year investment horizon targeting six designated future industries. _Anyone deciding whether to trust reputation-based AI lab funding can dig into deals like this on daily.dev._ ### What is Pragmatik Labs building? Pragmatik Labs splits its work into four areas: digital agents for knowledge work, physical agents for real-world environments, frontier research, and products shaped by real-world feedback. The physical agents work implies robotics, requiring perception, spatial reasoning, and machines that move, which is costlier than software-only agent development. No model, product, or demo has been released yet. _Developers evaluating emerging agent platforms can watch early-stage bets like this unfold on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Alibaba’s Qwen tech lead steps down after major AI push](https://daily.dev/posts/alibaba-s-qwen-tech-lead-steps-down-after-major-ai-push-qtv9vzjml) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Did Alibaba just kneecap its powerful Qwen AI team? Key figures depart in wake of latest open source release](https://daily.dev/posts/did-alibaba-just-kneecap-its-powerful-qwen-ai-team-key-figures-depart-in-wake-of-latest-open-source-q1cd2cdry) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [China's Psibot hits $1.48bn betting on 'world models'](https://daily.dev/posts/china-s-psibot-hits-1-48bn-betting-on-world-models--dp158ys8g) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Something is afoot in the land of Qwen](https://daily.dev/posts/something-is-afoot-in-the-land-of-qwen-o2fgwtk44) · Simon Willison · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#robotics](https://daily.dev/tags/robotics), [#alibaba](https://daily.dev/tags/alibaba), [#qwen](https://daily.dev/tags/qwen) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-man-who-built-qwen-has-a-new-lab-and-the-shanghai-government-is-an-investor-3hiwr4gta) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The man who built Qwen has a new lab, and the Shanghai government is an investor","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-man-who-built-qwen-has-a-new-lab-and-the-shanghai-government-is-an-investor-3hiwr4gta","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-man-who-built-qwen-has-a-new-lab-and-the-shanghai-government-is-an-investor-3hiwr4gta"},"datePublished":"2026-08-12T11:54:48.845Z","dateModified":"2026-08-12T11:55:15.339Z","description":"Junyang Lin, the former lead of Alibaba's Qwen models, has launched a new startup called Pragmatik Labs in Shanghai, five months after leaving Alibaba. 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