Recently, Shenzhen Potential Technology officially announced the completion of tens of millions of dollars of B round financing. The financing was jointly led by Source Code Capital and Qiming Venture Capital, and the old shareholders Hillhouse Venture Capital and Matrix Venture Capital continued to increase, and Miracle Capital served as the exclusive FA of this round of financing.
It is reported that the financing funds will be mainly used to continue to attract top talents in the industry, so as to deepen the construction of micro-scale industrial design platforms, as well as the landing of related technologies in scenarios such as drugs and material design.
Founded in 2018, Shenshi Technology is a technology enterprise dedicated to using "AI+ molecular simulation" technology to create a new generation of micro-scale industrial design platform for the most basic life, energy, material science and engineering research of human civilization, and liberate the R&D productivity of the industry. In 2019, Shenshi Technology opened the road of large-scale development and quickly grew into a dark horse enterprise in the industry.
It is worth mentioning that this financing is the fourth round of financing completed by Shenzhen Potential Technology in 18 consecutive months, and the list of investors includes Hillhouse Venture Capital, Matrix Partners Venture Capital, Baekto Shengke, Yuanjing Capital, Qingliu Capital, Baidu Venture Capital, Wei hunter capital, Shengjing Jiacheng and other leading capital institutions and enterprises.
Behind the frequent favor of capital, what did Shenzhen Potential Technology do right? What is the current business progress? What will be the layout in the future? In response to this, 36Kr and Sun Weijie, founder and CEO of Shenshi Technology, launched an in-depth dialogue.
(Left: Founder & CEO Sun Weijie; Right: Founder & Chief Scientist Zhang Linfeng)
Heart: Using a new generation of molecular simulation technology to solve micro-scale industrial design problems
Since the opening of a new round of domestic artificial intelligence capital boom in 2016, many star companies have emerged in subdivisions such as computer vision and natural language processing. In scenarios that require large-scale computing to ensure accuracy, such as new drugs, new material research and development, etc., "AI + molecular simulation" is also giving birth to a subdivision field with huge opportunities.
"I was a classmate of another founder and chief scientist, Dr. Zhang Linfeng, when I was a student at Peking University's Yuanpei College, and we often discussed whether the use of AI to solve physical problems can bring value to the industry, and how to achieve the best results." Sun Weijie told 36Kr that in 2018, the two hit it off and decided to start from the underlying mathematical model, integrate simulation tools under computer science, and solve research and development problems through related products and services in various specific scenarios such as biology, materials, and chemistry. "If you want to develop this algorithm better and have a greater impact, the best way is to start a company."
What should be the path of Shenzhen Potential Technology after its establishment? In Sun Weijie's view, the key path for all physical models to finally have an impact on the industry is industrial software and industrial design. "Based on this, we have established an entrepreneurial path that combines AI with molecular simulation algorithms to create a microscale industrial design platform."
In detail, based on this set of "multi-scale modeling + machine learning + high-performance computing" method, Shenzhen Potential Technology has developed a set of micro-scale design and simulation tools for drugs and materials, providing micro-scale industrial design and simulation platforms for innovative pharmaceutical companies, new material manufacturers, scientific research institutions and other customers with micro-design needs, thereby greatly improving R&D efficiency.
The popular explanation is that molecular simulation is based on physical models such as quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics, and uses computers to simulate physical phenomena that occur at the microscopic scale of electrons, atoms, and molecules. The algorithm of Deep Potential Technology is to use AI to greatly accelerate the solution of physical models such as quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics, and then combine cutting-edge computing methods such as high-performance computing to further improve the solving efficiency of physical models, so as to efficiently calculate physical and chemical problems at the microscopic scale. On the basis of ensuring the efficiency and accuracy of calculation, this set of algorithms also has strong versatility, which can bring breakthrough calculation simulation and design tools to the fields of drugs and materials.
Behind this is the test of the team's technical "genes" and the ability to gather talents, which are mainly reflected in three dimensions.
First, the main R&D members of Shenzhen Potential Technology come from a number of world-class universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises. Among them, E Weinan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, serves as a director and chief scientific adviser in the enterprise. "From the lowest level of mathematics and physics, to chemistry, biology, to front-end drugs, materials and other applied disciplines, as well as CS disciplines that run through them, we have partners with outstanding educational backgrounds, rich work experience and profound industry knowledge, which has created our interdisciplinary research and development and collaboration system." Sun Weijie said.
Second, in addition to the underlying algorithm developers, there is also a great deal of emphasis on the construction of software engineering teams. Shenshi Technology has attracted outstanding talents in the industry, including Liao Ruoxue, former chairman of Baidu's technical committee, and Xu Bo, former head of Baidu's search engine products. "In addition, we have also formed a team with a deep understanding of materials, drugs and other fields, forming a complete 'algorithm breakthrough - engineering development - product construction - computing services' collaboration system."
Third, the accumulation of outstanding talents in the industry in turn has brought continuous positive feedback to enterprises in terms of business cooperation and personnel recruitment, thus driving the iteration and sustainable growth of the team. "There is an attractive relationship between top talent, and a good talent environment can encourage more scientists and technical talents to work with us and even join us."
With the deep digging in technology and the construction of the team, Shenshi Technology pioneered the paradigm of "multi-scale modeling + machine learning + high-performance computing", which breakthroughly realized the unity of accuracy and efficiency in multi-scale molecular simulation.
With a new generation of molecular simulation technology, the core members of the Shenzhen Potential Technology team won the ACM Gordon Bell Award, the highest award in the field of high-performance computing in 2020. The relevant work was also selected as one of the top ten scientific and technological progress in China in 2020 and the top ten scientific and technological progress in global artificial intelligence in 2020 selected by academicians of the two academies. This approach will not only change the paradigm of scientific research, but will also greatly shorten the distance between theoretical research and solving practical problems.
Growth: The business process is accelerated, and the "innovation-landing" chain is continuously improved
For hard-core technology companies, the continuous digging of technology moats and the landing of commercial scenarios are the key to whether they can be stable and far-reaching.
Let's start with the technical moat. "We have extended the technical capabilities of AI+ molecular simulation to the efficient computation of quantum mechanics of billions of atoms." Sun Weijie said that on the basis of this technical thinking, Deep potential technology launched the Lebesgue scientific computing platform, Hermite drug design platform and The Bohrium microcomputing and design platform for the diversified simulation research and development needs of specific scenarios from the underlying mathematical model to the simulation tools under computer science, and then to the specific scenarios such as chemistry, biology and materials, which initially formed the micro-scale industrial design platform matrix of Deep potential technology.
In the landing of business scenarios, Shenshi Technology liberates the productivity of scientific research and industrial design through the above-mentioned cost-effective new productivity tools, and accelerates the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. Up to now, Shenshi Technology has cooperated with a number of leading customers in the fields of medicine, materials and new energy, and has built a complete system from the bottom innovation to the industrial landing through the empowerment of the micro-scale industrial design platform.
Take the field of new energy as an example. Shenshi Technology has reached cooperation with CATL to jointly build a joint laboratory to jointly expand the future space for the development of cutting-edge technologies in the field of new energy with a more efficient calculation-driven material research and development model.
For example, in the field of medicine, Shenshi Technology has joined hands with a number of customers to combine the computational paradigm of physical modeling + AI with preclinical drug research and development, and through hermite Uni-FEP, Uni-Fold, RiD and other modules, the free energy perturbation theory, molecular dynamics, enhanced sampling algorithm and high-performance computing are combined to accurately predict protein structure and conformation changes, and efficiently evaluate the binding free energy of proteins and ligands with chemical precision. Provide efficient and accurate theoretical guidance for drug developers. The significance of this is that it can help pharmaceutical people escape the "double ten" circle: each new drug takes 10 years from research and development to marketing, costing 1 billion US dollars, and the difficulties include drug screening and research and development, and the program aims to improve the efficiency of drug design and optimization.
Recalling the beginning of commercialization, Sun Weijie bluntly said that it was not easy. "In the early days of entrepreneurship, we negotiated cooperation with a leading pharmaceutical company in China, but at that time, the development progress of the entire software project was still far from the real use of customers, so the company mobilized the entire development team to work overtime." At that time, it was the eleventh holiday, several core developers almost ate and lived in the company, after nearly a month of centralized development and testing, we deployed and installed on-site to customers at the end of October, and the final product was well received by customers. It is with this hard work that Shenshi Technology has won the first important strategic cooperation customer. ”
It can be seen that Shenshi Technology continues to open up the chain from the underlying technological innovation to the rapid landing of the scene.
In terms of market space, according to the data of the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the scale of the mainland artificial intelligence market will continue to grow from 2016 to 2021, and the market size will grow from 15.4 billion yuan in 2016 to 196.3 billion yuan in 2021, with an annual compound growth rate of 69.79% and will continue to grow. Under this general trend, artificial intelligence and the intelligent transformation of all walks of life will form a close synergy to jointly promote the formation of a huge market.
Interestingly, whether it is new materials or new drug research and development, it is a trillion-level big market. However, Sun Weijie said that the business imagination space is an important consideration for Shenshi Technology to enter a certain field, but the starting point of the priority is to truly solve the pain points of the industry driven by real problems.
"The world changes very quickly, certainty is an unrealistic imagination, it's hard to clearly plan what will happen in the next 3 to 5 or even 10 years, we can only bet on change and embrace change." Therefore, we must determine whether there is a deep enough accumulation on the most critical issues in the industry, and whether there is a strong enough technical barrier and adaptability. Only then will we be able to seize the opportunity when it arises. ”
This concept is also reflected in the strategic direction of DeepInn Technology. Sun Weijie believes that AI+Science has become a hot spot in the field, as a leader, Shenshi Technology will continue to work hard to define and solve key problems in the industry, expand the boundaries of technological productivity, and use all advanced computing methods to improve the efficiency of computing simulation. "We will transform the research and development of the microscale industrial field from large-scale trial and error experiments to a new paradigm of 'computational design- experimental verification' as soon as possible, and provide micro-scale industrial design infrastructure for the evolution of human civilization."
Future: Innovation drives the development of the company, and Shenshi Technology has once again won the favor of capital
Through innovation-driven development, Shenzhen Trend Technology has frequently won the favor of well-known investment institutions and completed 4 rounds of financing within 18 months.
In response to this round of financing, Dr. Kan Chen, partner of Qiming Venture Capital, said: "Artificial intelligence accelerates the emergence of a new paradigm for scientific research. The breakthrough AI+ quantum simulation of DeepInfo Technology breaks through the bottleneck of traditional molecular simulation, thus creating multi-field demand solutions. At present, the software platform of Shenshi Technology has been widely used in multidisciplinary laboratories in the academic community, with unique technical advantages and the blessing of star teams, we look forward to Shenshi Technology being able to base itself on China and become the world's leading 'next generation' molecular simulation platform." ”
For this investment in Shenzhen Potential Technology, Huang Yungang, partner of Source Code Capital, said: "Deep Potential Technology is the computing tool platform needed to create a new research and development paradigm, and better empower the research and development of industries such as medicine and materials. For example, in the biomedical field, one of the key areas, scientific computing is promoting the development of the industry, while the investment philosophy and practice of source code technology + biomedicine has always been a new consensus injected into the medical and biological fields across borders. We are looking forward to the company's great improvement in R&D efficiency in the industry." ”
"We have been communicating and cooperating with investment institutions with a very open mind, and it is their companionship and support that enables Shenshi Technology to achieve rapid development." Sun Weijie believes that in the future development of enterprises, one is to move forward with like-minded partners, and the other is to realize that all science and technology have no static barriers, and only by continuously breaking through the boundaries of productivity and solving more problems can we truly maximize the commercial value of deep-line technology. "Making human life better through scientific and technological breakthroughs will become the main line of continuous advancement of deep-rooted technology."
For the foreseeable future, technological transitions will continue to drive change across industries. The industry participants in the depths of it will enjoy the dividends of the times under this wave of technology.