At the beginning of the year, this track has nearly 100 financings, and VCs have invested more than 250 billion yuan

Wen 丨 Li Tongwei

Source 丨Tou China Network

With the continuous "out of the circle" and wide attention of virtual people such as Feng Xiaoshu, meteorological anchor of the Winter Olympics, Cui Xiaopan, employee of Vanke, Hua Zhibing, a virtual female student of Tsinghua University, Liu Yexi, a douyin beauty expert, and the first ultra-realistic national style KOL Ling, the big explosion of the virtual human track came to the front of the stage.

Capital has long been heard, less than a month after 2022, the number of financing in the virtual person field is nearly 100, and the amount of financing has reached 411 million yuan.

According to data, there are 2843 financings for virtual people-related enterprises in 2021, with a financing amount of 254 billion yuan. In 2020, there were 1713 virtual person-related corporate financings. Not only that, first-line funds such as Sequoia, IDG and Shunwei Capital have entered the market, with a total financing amount of nearly 800 million yuan.

The latest investment information comes from ByteDance, in January, Hangzhou Li Weike Technology Co., Ltd., which created a virtual IP image "Li Weike", announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan of angel round financing, and ByteDance exclusive investment.

"When we looked at this track in 2017, a lot of people didn't know what a virtual person was, and in 2021, especially in the second half of the year, it seems like a lot of people understand. Many investors are looking for suitable investment targets. Shengjing Jiacheng investor Liu Di said.

Zhang Qixi, the founder of the male hyperrealistic virtual person who created "ChuanCHUAN" on the Xiaohongshu platform, told me that he began to pay attention to virtual people in 2019, and as a serial entrepreneur, he began to enter the hyper-realistic virtual person track in early 2020 to start a business, but the east wind of the meta-universe in 2021 allowed him to accelerate the layout.

At the 2022 New Year's Eve event, Teresa Teng's avatar sang on stage; the virtual idol "Liu Yexi" won more than 17 million likes with 4 short videos, and the number of fans reached nearly 8 million in less than two months; the 2021 Vanke Group Best Newcomer Award was awarded to the virtual person - Cui Xiaopan, who joined the company for 10 months, and the response to the document processing prompted by Cui Xiaopan was 7 times that of the traditional IT system prompt, and the cancellation rate of prepaid overdue documents was 91.44%.

The image of these virtual people is only the tip of the iceberg at present. Statistics show that the current market size of virtual people has exceeded 200 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 270 billion yuan in 2030.

Several major subdivisions of the track, virtual people have shown their skills

The story of the virtual man has long been there. As early as 1982 in Japan, the production team packaged the heroine of the animation work "Timeless Fortress" Lin Mingmei as a singer who sang interludes, and produced a music album for her, making Lin Mingmei the world's first virtual person Geji.

At the beginning of the 21st century, CG technology and motion capture technology were innovated, and Japan developed the first widely recognized virtual human "Hatsune Mirai". In 2012, Hatsune Mirai held a 10,000-person concert; in 2017, a Hatsune Mirai VR was released, and the buyer could enter the virtual world through a VR device and let her sing the song she wanted to hear in front of her, which caused buyers to queue up in front of the distribution store.

In recent years, thanks to the breakthrough of artificial intelligence technology, a number of virtual people have sprung up.

Zeng Yinglong, an investor in Zhichun Capital, divides virtual people into "skin bags" and "souls". At the skin bag level, for a long time, virtual people appeared in the image of "two-dimensional". But as modeling and motion capture techniques continue to improve, hyperrealistic virtual people are becoming more and more similar to real people, whether in form, expression, or sound.

Teresa Teng, who appeared on stage on Jiangsu Satellite TV, is an excellent case, as well as AYAYI, who became popular on the Little Red Book, Hua Zhibing, a Tsinghua student, and Cui Xiaopan, an employee of Vanke, who are also representatives of hyper-realistic virtual people.

Li Di, CEO of Xiaoice, previously told the media, "Cui Xiaopan has real work ability, not just appearance." This is the most important value of creating virtual humans Xiaoice framework. ”

Virtual people, although "virtual", no longer have empty "skin bags". Virtual talents who "practice both inside and outside" have real value. At the soul level, the construction of hyper-realistic virtual people is also constantly innovating.

For example, the virtual person "Chuan CHUAN" on the Little Red Book, as the first male virtual person Internet celebrity, its image characteristics are - ghost horse teenager, fashion trend, foodie, exploration, learning max, as well as Ling, who appears in a hyper-realistic painting style and an aesthetic image with Chinese characteristics, she is a cross-dimensional girl who loves the national style, and can play Peking Opera, brush characters, Tai Chi and so on. AYAYI is portrayed as a big star, fashion, and trend, and Yoo Ye-hee is portrayed as a real and mysterious image of the national style.

In addition to the division of virtual human ontology, if divided according to the application scenarios, the commercial application scenarios are becoming more and more abundant. In particular, in 2021, the hyper-realistic virtual idol market is blowing up, and the "Virtual Idol Observation Report" released by iQIYI shows that the high-difficulty hyper-realistic virtual person through CG art visual design, 3D modeling, virtual digitization, motion capture and binding will promote the virtual idol market size to reach 200 billion yuan in 2020.

Virtual idols, virtual IP is a very important subdivision application scenario of the virtual human track at present, CCV creation partner investor Nie Dongchen said, "Its existence role is not much different from the real star, it has its own personality, has its own output, and the commercialization method is also mostly the advertising endorsement cost of "The Golden Father". ”

Looking at the scene of carrying goods, carrying goods can also be called the "main business" of many virtual people. For example, Taobao already has a lot of virtual people with goods live broadcast room; head anchor Li Jiaqi has also introduced Luo Tianyi as a deputy, that is, the auxiliary role of the live broadcast room. Compared with real people, virtual anchors make live broadcast time more flexible, and on the basis of enhancing the brand's sense of newness and technology, they can also increase the way consumers are familiar with products, and the existing forms include virtual people solo broadcasting and live broadcasting in cooperation with real anchors.

In the subdivision of virtual anchors, the growth of Station B is more obvious, and the report of Changjiang Securities shows that the revenue of virtual anchors of Station B has increased from 7.62 million in January 2020 to more than 50 million in November 2021, and the number of payers has increased from 70,000 to more than 250,000, of which Yousa and Hanser have also been selected as the top 100 UP masters of Station B in 2020.

There are other application scenarios, such as Cui Xiaopan's finance position, which is the value of virtual people in liberating human resources. The whole set of business logic that Cui Xiaopan needs to deal with is complex and clear, and for humans, it takes a long time to learn and train to master, but for AI that can use big data and algorithms, this kind of work is an opportunity to show its skills.

In addition, based on the years of precipitation in the film and television special effects industry, the virtual person has formed a complete set of industrial production processes and business systems at the production end, in addition to the above-mentioned operation to the company, the underlying technical service companies are also emerging, and indispensable.

According to the "2020 Virtual Digital Human Development White Paper" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the infrastructure layer of virtual people includes display, optics, sensors, modeling, rendering engines and other parts, mainly controlled by overseas giants; the platform application layer mainly includes the specific functions of making virtual people, including motion capture, intelligent speech, natural language processing, etc.

Why do virtual people become popular?

Mei Song, the founder of Yunfang Technology, previously worked for a game company, and was registered and established in March 2017, the original intention of which was to independently develop motion capture technology, so that ordinary cameras can capture 3D data such as body, fingers, and expressions in real time, helping to promote the virtual live broadcast industry from 2D surface capture to 3D motion capture upgrades. After 3 years of technology research and development, Yunbao Technology has completed three rounds of financing for BV Baidu Venture Capital, Wuyue Capital and CCV Genesis Partners in 1 year, and its product, Xiao K Live, has registered more than 20,000 times after 3 months of launch.

In addition, other segmented tracks include companies with virtual people as entrances. Hangzhou Li Weike Technology Co., Ltd., which has been invested by ByteDance, has laid out XR glasses, and the virtual person Li Weike will interact with users through AI in XR glasses, and she has also become the brand endorsement of this XR glasses.

ACE virtual song Ji was launched by Beijing Time Domain Technology in 2020, is a combination of AI song synthesis technology music creation APP, specifically, ACE virtual song Ji to provide users with a number of AI virtual singers, users can enter the song melody, lyrics in the ACE creation tool, and select AI virtual singer for song singing, this "word-filling play" allows users to create secondary creation on the song melody created by other users, the app has reached millions of cumulative users.

In the view of founder Guo Jing, if the virtual person is divided into voice, brain, shape, and action, ACE can play the role of a good sound engine in it, "We are the sound engine of the native virtual person and the creator ecology behind the sound."

Zeng Yinglong, a partner at Zhichun Capital, constantly mentioned that one of the mainstream economic trends in the future is to pay for happiness.

Relatively speaking, for the "Generation Z" group, the IP image created by virtual people is very much in line with their aesthetic and consumer needs. The "Generation Z" group, with a size of about 250 million people, has become the backbone of China's Internet, and their consumption and aesthetic needs directly affect the research and development and application of virtual people.

The growth experience and environment of this group of people also make them more accepting of virtual people. Generation Z social networking presents the following characteristics: more favored virtual social methods, is the reality of "social fear", but is the internet master; more concerned about the same fun, boldly express their own views; more emphasis on spiritual fit, like to show themselves with new personalities.

Take a look at the hyper-realistic virtual idol, its birth is also in line with the needs of the audience, hyper-realistic virtual people have more common points with people, and the audience real-time interaction at the same time increase the sense of reality, bringing a new immersive interactive experience, "in a sense, this also reflects the audience's hope that virtual people to achieve their emotional escort of this demand, virtual live broadcast, emotional escort market in the same way." Zeng Yinglong thought.

In addition, the sudden explosion of virtual people is closely related to the rise of the concept of metaverse. After Facebook changed its name to Meta, the heat of the metaverse was pushed to the peak, and the virtual person also became hot.

Nie Dongchen mentioned that virtual people are the 1:1 projection of real-world human beings in the meta-universe world and the future world. "The metacosm is a parallel existence with the real world, and what the real world looks like, the metaverse will look like." In this world, everyone will have their own 'virtual person'. ”

Under the epidemic, the metaverse is like a perfect dream, and the virtual person has become a way to interact between the real world and the virtual world to provide stronger visual effects, better immersive experience and more emotional temperature.

It can be said that the virtual person is a necessary factor for the realization of the metaverse, and with it, the boundary between reality and virtual can be broken. "Why would humans want to go to the metacosm? Emotional connection will be the most important factor, users have a stronger sense of participation, can also be created at will, they are super individuals in the virtual world, but also can interact, accompany, communicate. Nie Dongchen thought.

Qu Siyuan, the founder of Huiye Technology, once said that Huiye divided the development of virtual people into three eras. In the 1.0 era, virtual people are only presented in the form of pictures and videos; virtual people in the 2.0 era will be more interactive; and eventually in the future 3.0 era, the core of virtual people will be personalized. In the 3.0 era, each digital person can have their own specific personality and personalized behavior, which can make users believe that they really exist in a virtual world, which will be driven by personalized decision-making, language, and action systems.

But at present, some meta-universe projects are still in the conceptual stage, and Luo Chao, an investor in GGV Jiyuan Capital, mentioned, "It is difficult to say what the end game of this thing will evolve into, and it will require a long process and a lot of technological breakthroughs." Our investment theme will not be based on the meta-universe hotspot, but will focus on the technical path and landing stage behind it. ”

In addition, from the level of virtual IP and virtual idols, behind the popularity of virtual people, the continuous collapse of morally lost artists is a booster.

This year's "idol collapse" incident after incident has caused fans and brands that have found "collapsed house" idol endorsements to varying degrees. However, virtual people will not have scandals, and there is no "ability" to lose morality, and it is expected that the "perfect" idol who will not collapse as a human design will enter the vision of the public and the market.

Zeng Yinglong said, "They can always stay energetic, perform for you with a smile, or live stream the goods." The connection between them and their fans is almost established according to the wishes of the fans, and there will be no "collapsed" situation of live stars. ”

Moreover, in some application scenarios, virtual people can do better than humans, never complain, and never get tired. Humans can be liberated from repetitive work and enjoy life.

The track is still young

The virtual human track is still very young, and there are many problems that need to be solved urgently.

According to the "2021 China Virtual Idol Market Analysis Report", the upstream investment of virtual idols is mainly concentrated on professional talents and software cost inputs. The production, artist and modeling of 3D virtual idols can be invested in hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan. If the virtual idol needs to launch a single, including arrangement, modeling, image design, stage plan customization, etc., the cost is as high as 2 million yuan, and does not include communication costs.

The "Liu Yexi" team previously said in an interview with the media that in the more than half a year before the launch of "Liu Yexi", the cost investment has been "far more than one million". Even though Liu Yexi currently has more than 8 million fans, she is still in the stage of burning money and sucking powder. Since the first video was sent last year, Liu Yexi has published 6 short videos, which are not long but the cost is not low.

"Generally speaking, the cost of hyper-realistic virtual people's videos per second is in the range of 8,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan, and a picture costs thousands of yuan, and more than 90% of the companies that currently do virtual people are very difficult to make profits." But for virtual person startups, the risk of continuing to build an IP is very high.

Nie Dongchen said that CCV Genesis Partners will not choose a startup that only has a virtual IP, but also makes a decision after assessing the risk.

The price is high and the capacity is insufficient. At present, most of the production of virtual people still use 3D modeling + motion capture, which is a more traditional way, which can produce film quality, exquisite and delicate virtual people, but the cost is high and the production capacity is not high.

What is more restrictive of the sustainable development of virtual people is that at present, the monetization form of virtual people is still limited to short-term traffic dividends such as live broadcasts and concerts, and it is still impossible to create new value space. Most of them are limited to a single scene including live streaming, news broadcasting, multilingual broadcasting, meteorological broadcasting, etc., and there is no further sinking promotion.

According to data from the Guosheng Securities Research Institute, virtual anchors are one of the best ways for virtual people to achieve their current commercial achievements. "In November 2021, the virtual anchor of Station B, 'Jiale Carol', set a single monthly revenue of 2.14 million yuan, occupying the top spot. Among them, a birthday party live broadcast that lasted for 4 hours generated a single income of 1.89 million yuan. ”

But such achievements are rare. Another set of public data shows that as of August 18, 2021, of the 3472 virtual anchors that Have relative attention to Station B, 1827 have a revenue of 0 yuan in the month, and more than half of those without income.

"Many virtual person companies are only responsible for production, it is difficult to differentiate, and the result is that IP is not bright enough, bleeding and burning money." In the absence of follow-up financing, it is difficult to maintain and maintain the heat. Good teams must focus on data and technology accumulation, polish high-quality productivity tools, and build barriers to stand out in the long run. Luo Chao, an investor in GGV Jiyuan Capital, said.

According to another survey, only 6.3% of people are willing to spend more than 500 yuan for virtual idols, and their willingness is still relatively low.

So in the long run, the company behind the virtual person may need to explore more comprehensive value, such as creating a closed-loop, interconnected content ecology, and creating a Disney-like brand.

Of course, it is undeniable that the recognition of virtual people also needs to be further improved. Although the current AI virtual people have a wide range of talents, it is still difficult to combine their own understanding and feelings, lack of emotional interaction, nor can they improvise the language of organization, cannot perceive care and warmth, and it is difficult to produce real resonance.

In the view of people who have been in the virtual person industry for several years, the heat of capital cannot cover up problems such as less content production and limited technology. "The popularity of the metaverse concept has brought too much help to virtual people out of the circle, as if anyone can do virtual people, many IPs on the market claim to be virtual people, but the quality is uneven." Guo Jing, founder of ACE Virtual Geji, said, "The threshold for modeling is not high, and there are many talents who can model, but there are not many who seriously do products." ”

Liu Di, an investor in Shengjing Jiacheng, said, "If you look at the latest batch of companies, you can find that either the team that fails to do the game or the team that fails in film and television. They saw the track get hot and rushed in, but most of them didn't take it seriously. The reason is very simple, the track is hot, there is a lot of money, even if there is no strong technology, the first entry place has the possibility of success. ”

What is the real outbreak of virtual people? Liu Di further said, "When there is no need to educate the market, do you remember when everyone first bought IPads, they all ran to the game of cutting fruits, which was not taught." From the perspective of a vertical industry, it has not reached the state of breaking the circle, that is, several evenings and several live broadcasts. ”

Liu Di has been working in the virtual human track for nearly 5 years, he introduced the investment logic of Shengjing Jiacheng, "We define the digital twin into 4 dimensions, the first is mapping, that is, to move the real world to the virtual space, the technology content is not high, its core is the engine; the second is interaction, adding some data and sensing in technology, so that the real world and the virtual world are connected; the third is simulation, that is, modeling on the basis of interaction, adding AI, so that virtual people have their own thinking and expression capabilities; the fourth is decision-making, that is, direct monetization in the terminal." ”

Shengjing Jiacheng is biased towards the layout at the level of interaction, simulation and decision-making, and the interaction layer has shot Outmagike Technology, Zhongke Shenzhi, and NOLO. "Zhongke Shenzhi and Maijike are also going to the third layer - artificial intelligence-driven digital models, and the decision-making level has invested gravity paintings, which is the most capable virtual anchor of the whole network."

Zhang Qixi, the founder of Yizhen Yi fantasy, said that in the future, only when virtual people establish a real relationship with real people will they push this track to the next step. "If a virtual person doesn't solve a human problem, then it's a cold and ineffective skin." It can be hot at the moment, but if it doesn't have anything to do with everyone, the heat will disappear. ”