Economic Observation Network reporter Zhou Ju Liu Xiaolin radar how to produce? The answer can be found in an ordinary office building located in Yizhuang Han's Enterprise Bay. Visitors can see that in the 100-square-meter dust-free assembly workshop, several staff members wearing blue dustproof suits stand in front of their respective workbenches and perform assembly line operations on a black block-shaped circuit board that is not yet the size of a palm.
This black box is the on-board millimeter-wave radar that is in increasing demand at present, and is known as the "eye" of smart cars. It detects obstacles in front of the car and in the four corners and gives driving behavior a reference for decision-making. At present, millimeter-wave radar is already standard for L2 and above autonomous vehicle models.
Although the size of the vehicle radar is not large, but because it involves high-tech such as chips, there are not many companies in China that can make this product. Xingyidao Technology Co., Ltd. (abbreviation: Xingyidao) is one of them. The above scene comes from the Yizhuang factory of XingyiDao. In this factory, the processes required include the feeding of the cover plate, the feeding of the PCBA board, the assembly of the PCBA board and the cover plate, and the placement of the thermal conductive sheet. After the assembly is completed, it is also necessary to carry out air tightness test, black box test, etc. After all tests are completed, the product is labeled for shipment.
Founded in 2014, Xingyidao's products are mainly vehicle-mounted millimeter wave radar, and has been certified by Beijing "Specialized special new" small and medium-sized enterprises. Dr. Zhao Jie is the founder of Xingyidao, she studied and worked in the Institute of Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 11 years, after leaving the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2010, she founded Xingyidao in 2014 and served as CEO & CTO, which is a typical science and technology entrepreneur.
For Zhao Jie, the transition from scientific research to business is a very challenging change, and he has entered the field of intelligent devices that have become increasingly competitive.
Millimeter wave radar is mainly used in smart cars. At present, smart electric vehicles have become the outlet of the global manufacturing industry, as the core of the automotive autonomous driving function, including cameras, millimeter wave radar, lidar and other sensors have also become a new hot spot in the automotive industry chain. Over the past few years, traditional parts giants and start-ups have joined forces to increase the intensity of competition in this area.
After 7 years of hard work, now the easy way has begun to move on the right track. The acquisition of this "right track" is not easy, and it precisely stems from the "other way" of Xingyidao: under the practical difficulties of domestic brand barriers that are difficult to break, Xingyidao chose to take the overseas market as the starting point and became the first domestic millimeter-wave radar company to export abroad.
The bumps in the first step are not well known. Zhao Jie admitted that in the past 7 years, the company has encountered many challenges, and individuals have also learned lessons. But looking back, the "tuition" was well paid.
From research to business
Before founding Xingyidao, Zhao Jie was a researcher at the Institute of Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mainly researching unmanned aerial vehicle radar systems, and worked for more than a decade. In 2010, Zhao Jie, who had crossed the "threshold" of 35 years old, decided to change the environment, she left the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and had the idea of starting a business.
"In fact, there are many talents in the system, but I encountered some bottlenecks at that time, and the relevant research I did at that time was a very expensive field, and if it was done in the direction I expected, it needed a particularly large material and financial guarantee, but in the institution, it was more difficult to coordinate." I thought later that maybe it would be better to change fields. As for the reasons for leaving the system, Zhao Jie recalled.
Leaving a stable position in the system to start a business from scratch, Zhao Jie said she did not hesitate, and her relatives and friends were not surprised by this. "I've always had a lot of ideas since I was a kid, and a lot of things are made by myself, so other people know that once I announce something, it means I've already thought about it."
Clear mind and decisive judgment, this character trait and ability are also reflected in Zhao Jie's choice of the direction of science and technology entrepreneurship. At the beginning of the business, Zhao Jie was indeed a little uncertain about which field to do. At this time, Zhao Jie's teacher and old friend gave her a possible direction, "He said, you can consider the car radar, in the future every car will be used, this will be a big market, should be more promising." ”
Radar is also a familiar field for Zhao Jie, and she quickly consulted a large number of papers and found that many large international companies and teams are conducting research in this area, and she herself has also developed a strong interest in this. Therefore, without much hesitation, the vehicle-mounted millimeter wave radar has become the entrepreneurial direction of Zhao Jie.
With an idea, where does the money come from? According to Zhao Jie, the "first bucket of gold" of Xingyidao is the original assets from Pangu Venture Capital, which is a private capital, why Pangu Venture Capital chose Xingyidao, Zhao Jie believes: "Investment institutions have their own perspective, I guess they are interested in my experience and accumulation in technology, and I am willing to put my career on this matter, that is to say, I am serious, and I am more pragmatic. ”
Although with technology and start-up capital, this market is not easy to enter. The vehicle millimeter wave radar industry is basically monopolized by foreign manufacturers, and the share is mainly concentrated in the hands of the world's more well-known four Tier1s, namely Autoliv, Bosch, Continental and Delphi, which is referred to as "ABCD".
Zhao Jie revealed that in the domestic automotive market, foreign radar companies, including "ABCD", basically monopolize the market for forward radar with 100%, while the penetration rate of domestic suppliers of angle radar is only about 10%. In this supply pattern that has been solidified for many years and seems to be "monolithic", how can Xingyidao gain a place as a new small and medium-sized enterprise? This is a very real problem.
Curve saves the country
In order to break into the supply chain of domestic auto companies, Xingyidao has hit many walls, because few domestic companies are willing to use a start-up product.
"In China, our difficulty is that everyone (car companies) are not willing to be "guinea pigs" and risk using small business products, which is a big resistance, and what we basically encountered in those years was a copper wall (supply chain). Domestic car companies will not easily change the original procurement strategy to give domestic products opportunities, because this requires a lot of risks, and if the purchase of large enterprises' products, fast and safe, he (the purchaser) does not have to bear responsibility. So they will be more repulsive to this startup's product. Zhao Jie explained.
Under such circumstances, Xingyidao chose a path that no one else had traveled, that is, to enter the overseas market, accumulate word of mouth through exports, and then attack the domestic market. Of course, this is also a very difficult road, but what Zhao Jie was thinking at that time was: "It is difficult to export to foreign countries, and it is also difficult to enter the country. And if we go abroad, it may have a positive impact on the country, and customers will feel that you have exported, and you are recognized. ”
Zhao Jie began to study the development of automobile companies in various countries and the progress of the millimeter wave radar industry, and found that although South Korea is a big automobile country, its radar progress is not particularly smooth. Based on this, Zhao Jie judged that the South Korean market has more opportunities than exporting radar to industrial powers such as the United States and Germany.
It is gratifying that after more than two years of trying, the road to overseas has been easily opened. Starting from October 2021, Xingyidao Technology and Erae Korea have officially provided ADAS system mass production products for a Korean vehicle company. The product will be installed on two models, the next 5 years plan to load 400,000 units, according to the calculation of three radars per vehicle, the total order has more than 1 million radars, the total amount of nearly 500 million yuan. This is the first time that a domestic millimeter-wave radar company has realized the mass production and supply of forward radar for passenger cars.
According to Zhao Jie's recollection, Xingyidao's entry into the Korean market was not a one-horse Pingchuan, and there were also many bidding opponents during the period. However, South Korean car companies themselves know more about radar and have their own procurement standards, so they pay more attention to the performance of the product itself and are willing to give start-ups such as Xingyidao the opportunity. In the end, Xingyidao obtained this order with high cost performance and service level.
"Price is a factor on the one hand, and on the other hand, large radar companies may have many large customers, and it may be deficient in terms of service response to car companies, and this is our advantage." Zhao Jie said.
In the past few years, in order to meet the product design requirements of the Korean side, the Xingyidao team has frequently communicated between China and South Korea, and the plan has been modified and upgraded several times. In Zhao Jie's view, this project not only allows Xingyidao to successfully enter the automotive supply chain, but also greatly improves the competitiveness of its product design. For millimeter wave radar, the long-term application of the military field at home and abroad has made its hardware very mature, so its competition in the field of intelligent vehicles is mainly the design and development of functions at the software level.
The cooperation from South Korea has ensured the stable development of Xingyidao in the next few years, so that Xingyidao has begun to appear in the supplier candidate list of domestic car companies.
"Now there are already some orders for domestic commercial vehicles, and we have already shipped them. In terms of passenger cars, from 2021 onwards, we have talked a lot about the fixed point (supply) status, and in 2022, there should be many customers who will become real customers, and then start shipping at the end of 2022 or 2023. Zhao Jie said that the success of exporting to South Korea has labeled Xingyidao with the label that the quality technology has reached the international standard, which directly opens up the domestic market for it. After 7 years, Zhao Jie's "curve to save the country" strategy has finally achieved initial results.
The test of misjudgment
In the course of these 7 years of entrepreneurship, Zhao Jie admitted that he also experienced the darkest moment. One of the toughest challenges occurred in 2019-2020, and it was due to a misjudgment of the company's commercialization process.
"At that time, I was very optimistic about the future commercialization process and the prediction of the magnitude, and then whether it was people or materials, we made preparations in advance. But after the market began, it was far less than expected, and we were passive at once. Because your money has been invested, a whole bunch of people are already in the company. It was because of blind optimism at that time, and this thing was a big lesson for me. Zhao Jie said that later the company to make adjustments, it is also a very painful process.
What is even more unexpected is that in the case of the company's original performance was not as expected, it caught up with the outbreak of the epidemic, which made the line that just wanted to obtain overseas orders more passive.
"Our current (South Korean car company) order should have been fixed at the beginning of 2020, and the result was that there was no epidemic, and it was expected that the order would be confirmed in the first quarter of 2021, but it was confirmed in the nearly three quarters, which was delayed for half a year." This situation has put the company in a difficult period for a long time.
Entering 2021, the company's existing orders plus new financing arrived, and Xingyidao began to resume normal operations after difficult adjustments, and the problem was gradually solved. However, this setback made Zhao Jie continue to reflect and quickly adjust the company's business strategy.
Zhao Jie said that now she has her own clear understanding of business, in order to avoid the company re-entering the danger, will reserve a lot of customers and projects, and the final resource matching is also related to the maturity of these customers and projects. "Now we will not invest all our time, resources, and manpower into it without being determined, but we will make more reserves." Zhao Jie said that the company's internal system and decision-making process have become more rigorous and more flexible than in the past.
"The most difficult part of the entrepreneurial process is that it's not about giving you three times the money to do this one thing, but just one set of plans, just so many people, and you have to do it foolproof." So once you judge that there is a misjudgment, the team has made sufficient preparations, but in the end the expected order did not happen, and the process was very painful! This is also a tuition fee that I paid myself. For that impressive decision-making mistake, Zhao Jie constantly summarized and did not allow himself to make a second mistake.
Profit eve
Although the company has gone through the most difficult period and has stable orders overseas, Zhao Jie is soberly aware that the company still has a long way to go. "The size of us and large enterprises is certainly still incomparable, but we hope that the policy orientation will have more support and encouragement for startups, so that our products can be used, because only by using them can the products be continuously improved and better and better."
It is worth noting that in the current rapid development of autonomous driving towards higher orders, the popularity of lidar seems to be higher than that of millimeter-wave radar, because the latter is considered to be higher in detection distance and accuracy, which can better meet the needs of high-order automatic driving. In 2021, a number of domestic car companies have launched a competition for the number of lidar carriers on the newly launched smart electric vehicles. And lidar has also become an area of capital chasing.
But Zhao Jie said that Xingyidao will technically focus on millimeter-wave radar. This is based on her judgment that she has been immersed in this field for many years: lidar is an independent field, and there are already nearly 200 companies in China, but while the competition is fierce, the maturity of the product and the time point of full industrialization are not clear.
Millimeter wave radar products are very mature, and have high stability, and the perception ability is not affected by weather and light. "Millimeter-wave radar has an irreplaceable and unique advantage, it is not an alternative relationship with lidar, but coexists." Zhao Jie pointed out that for the sensor selection of smart cars, the increasingly accepted view is the sensor combination mode, that is, the use of multiple sensors. Based on this, the market demand for millimeter-wave radar will be very durable, and the performance of millimeter-wave radar will continue to evolve.
According to some data, the global vehicle millimeter wave radar market size will grow to $9.1 billion by 2025. According to CICC's research, the size of China's vehicle millimeter wave radar market will reach 11.4 billion yuan, with an annual compound growth rate of about 19%.
For startups, money is always the number one priority for survival. Zhao Jie said that at present, the C+ round of financing of Xingyidao has been completed, and the cumulative financing of C series and C+ round has reached about 200 million yuan. At the same time, new shareholders began to enter one after another, which not only brought funds to Xingyidao, but also helped the business.
Jianding (Wuxi) Electronics Co., Ltd. is a new shareholder of Xingyidao in 20201, and the production line established in Wuxi will provide more production capacity for Xingyidao.
According to Zhao Jie's forecast, Xingyidao will achieve breakeven this year. The company's current smooth operation also allows Zhao Jie to breathe a sigh of relief, "Since last fall to the present, it is a time when I have felt relatively relaxed in the past 7 years of entrepreneurship, and I have not been day and night like before. Now the company's internal process and systematization have begun to take shape, no longer everything has to find me, but can not be solved before I put it here. Zhao Jie said.
However, for the sustainable development of the company, Zhao Jie pays special attention to the stability of talents. In her view, talent is also the biggest risk factor faced by many startups in this field. Because the current autopilot industry is hot, coupled with some young people are more impetuous, resulting in a very large flow of talent in the industry, and millimeter-wave radar "requires technicians to sink their hearts and minds for several years to follow a project", which causes talents to sometimes mismatch. 1
At present, there are more than 90 employees in Xingyidao, but recruitment is still continuing. "There are still not enough people, it is very nervous, because one of our big projects involves a lot of people, more than 30 people together." Zhao Jie said.
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