First, the general overview: AI big model ignites the enthusiasm of the industry
Artificial intelligence, the "synonym" of cutting-edge technology, in 2023, which may become the hottest year in history, from the primary market "fire" to the secondary market, everywhere is filled with the smell of "AI". From the Turing test in 1950 to the birth of Chat-GPT at the end of 2022, the development of artificial intelligence has also experienced ups and downs, always developing in parallel with hope and "disappointment".
Venture Capital, a group of "risk" enthusiasts' adventure, whose behavior reflects the popularity and trends of the industry to a certain extent. Since 2000, the investment and financing data of the artificial intelligence industry has shown that the overall trend is upward. Among them, the number of financing events and the amount of financing reached the "peak" in 2018 and 2021. The reason for this is the incentive of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", as well as the impact of the "instantaneous" outbreak accumulated by the industry itself for many years, such as: autonomous driving, VR and other industries related to the artificial intelligence industry have been sought after by the market.
After a slightly "dull" 2022, under the guidance of popular fields such as large models and AGI (general artificial intelligence), the artificial intelligence market ushered in a new round of upward emergence in 2023, which once again attracted the attention and discussion of the market and academia.
Judging from the changes in the monthly data in the first half of the year, the average monthly financing event reached 48. From the specific monthly distribution, the number of financing events in May ranked first in the month, with 61 cases; In addition, June and March ranked second and third with 54 and 50 cases.
This year, the ChatGPT fire ignited enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. The 2023 Global Digital Economy Conference Artificial Intelligence Summit Forum and the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference bring together industry experts from various fields around the world to discuss hot topics in the field of artificial intelligence, and large models and AGI (general artificial intelligence) have become the "standard" of the conference.
Second, industry development: the number of financing events of cutting-edge technologies, robots and integrated circuits ranks first
Artificial intelligence, given its "interdisciplinary" nature, related frontier industries are also "blooming", from natural language processing, computer vision to chips, robots to autonomous driving, are widely involved.
From the industry distribution of financing events in the first half of 2023, the number of financing events for cutting-edge technologies, robots and integrated circuits ranked first, and autonomous driving also had 20 related financing events after these three.
AI chips, computing power must compete, automatic driving, make travel smarter, robots, a good helper to improve work efficiency, AI pharmaceutical, make pharmaceutical research and development more efficient...
The great value of artificial intelligence is not only reflected in the field of cutting-edge science, but also in the deep integration with thousands of industries, only by forming a good industrial ecology, business model, industrial chain closed loop, can artificial intelligence be used more by people and ordinary consumers. According to public data, the mainland's artificial intelligence industry is booming, the scale of core industries has reached 500 billion yuan, and innovative achievements are constantly emerging.
3. Geographical distribution: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong occupy the development highland
At the 2023 China International Digital and Software Services Fair held in Dalian, Liaoning Province, the AMiner team of the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University jointly released the 2023 Global Artificial Intelligence Most Innovative Cities Ranking and the analysis report of the Global Artificial Intelligence Innovation Cities Top 500. According to the report, China has 42 cities on the list, the second largest number of cities in the world.
Among the top 500 global AI innovation cities, China has 42 cities. Among the top 100 global AI innovation cities, there are 19 cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Taipei, Wuhan, Hefei, Shenyang, Chengdu, Tianjin, Harbin, Changsha, Hsinchu, Dalian and Jinan. It is worth noting that Beijing and Shanghai, as China's super first-tier cities, have entered the top ten in the world in their AI innovation index, of which Beijing's artificial intelligence innovation index ranks second in the world.
The development of the artificial intelligence industry has been closely linked with scientific and technological innovation in relevant regions. Looking at the development of artificial intelligence industry in domestic provinces and cities, it can be clearly found that the number of artificial intelligence financing events has an obvious positive relationship with local policy measures, regional GDP, and R&D investment.
In terms of the geographical distribution of financing events, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu ranked first in the number of related financing events, with 76, 59, 53, 37 and 30 respectively.
In addition, Anhui and Shaanxi also had 6 financing events each.
Since artificial intelligence technology has been included in the national plan, artificial intelligence has become a must for future scientific and technological innovation and development. At present, in this new track, several cities have run out of acceleration. Since the end of 2022, many provinces and regions across the country have issued policies and measures related to the development of artificial intelligence, breaking down barriers, promoting original innovation, promoting data circulation, and allowing more data to be effectively used from the "top-level design" stage, thereby promoting the healthy development of the industry.
4. Round distribution: The number of angel rounds, A rounds and strategic financing events ranks first
"Invest in small investment and early investment in hard technology", create a good investment and financing ecology from the policy side, guide capital support for such enterprises, boost the confidence of investment enterprises, and further activate the vitality of the innovation market.
Venture capital is like a bridge connecting the founders of the company--- the party looking for money and the investor of the venture institution--- the party that "gives" the money. When founders meet investors, there are angel rounds, A rounds, B rounds, C rounds, D rounds, and IPO bosses. These nodes for investors, is a change in the probability of success, but also a change in the expected return, the further back, the smaller the risk, the lower the rate of return.
The angel wheel is to turn ideas into reality and to make products; Series A, is to verify the income, someone is willing to pay is very important; In round B, what needs to be verified is the profit model, that is, to make money; Series C is to verify whether you can break through from 1 to 10, from a single point to the whole network market, the key here is your operational ability; If you can go to the top few and occupy a stable market, then the D round is coming.
From the distribution of rounds of financing events in the first half of 2023, the number of angel rounds, series A and strategic financing events ranked first, with 59, 57 and 38 respectively.
Entrepreneurial enterprises, "nine dead lives". There are only a few companies that can go from seed and angel rounds to C rounds and D rounds, and the curse of "C round death" is still widely spread. In addition to investors' money, strengthening their own "hematopoietic" ability is also an important way for enterprises to achieve sustainable development.
5. Investment institutions: Qiji Creation Forum, Innovation Factory and Hillhouse Venture Capital are in the forefront
As a group with the most sensitive sense of cutting-edge technology trends and industry changes, venture capital institutions are like a "shark" wandering in the "sea of technology", keeping an eye on the movements of each "prey" and preparing to strike.
From the perspective of the number of "shots" of investment institutions in 2023, Qiji Chuangtan, Innovation Factory and Hillhouse Venture Capital (tie) are in the forefront, with 8 and 5 respectively.
In addition to the above three institutions, well-known VCs such as Lenovo Venture Capital, Qiming Venture Capital and Lanchi Venture Capital also have investment "shots". Among CVCs, Tencent Investment, Baidu Venture Capital and Hubble Investment (Huawei's institution) are also on the list. Baidu needless to say, the attitude of All in AI has made it occupy the top position in both the field of autonomous driving and the field of large models; Hubble investment, mainly "hard technology" investment, is more familiar with its investment in the chip field is a very "generous"; Tencent Investment, in addition to being interested in games, is also sparing no effort in the layout of cutting-edge development, and has appeared in the list of investors of star-level start-ups many times this year, many of which are similar and have been included in Meitu's "Light Year".
In addition to the above-mentioned institutions, what most people find interesting is that the top two investment institutions with the number of "shots" --- Qiji Huangjian and Innovation Factory:
First, the founders of both companies are top experts in the field of computers, Lu Qi and Kai-Fu Lee belong to the brothers of Carnegie Mellon University, the university's computer department has ranked first in the United States for many years, known as the "divine school" of computers;
Second, the two "bigwigs" are almost the "ceiling-level" figures of Chinese in European and American technology companies, spanning Yahoo, Google, Apple, Microsoft and other world-class technology companies and occupying high positions. Before Lu Qi retired from "Microsoft", he had started research on the integration of artificial intelligence technology and Bing search. Faced with the advent of this era of large models, the two frequently made moves, and Lee Kai-fu personally started the large-model startup company "Zero One Everything".
As a technical investment, artificial intelligence has certain requirements for the accumulation of relevant personnel of investment institutions. Of course, according to the experience of most investors, venture capital, especially early investment, must be "look at people, look at the team".
6. Current situation and trend: Promote the digital, intelligent and green transformation of the real economy
In recent years, the mainland's artificial intelligence industry has developed vigorously, the layout of infrastructure has accelerated, and the integration and application have been deeply expanded. According to the data released by the 2023 Artificial Intelligence Conference, the current mainland supercomputing, intelligent computing, and cloud computing work together, and the scale of computing power ranks second in the world; Artificial intelligence and manufacturing are deeply integrated, and more than 2,500 digital workshops and smart factories have been built, which has effectively promoted the digital, intelligent and green transformation of the real economy.
In the future, with the accelerated development of artificial intelligence, industry enterprises can accelerate the prosperity and development of the industrial ecology through systematic innovation and adherence to open source, and support the high-quality development of artificial intelligence with powerful computing power.
Tianyancha Research Institute believes that in the short term, the fire of artificial intelligence has certain benefits for start-up companies to attract the attention of investors and obtain financing at higher valuations. However, in the long run, whether the product capabilities of the invested enterprises can be recognized by the market is an important factor affecting whether the investor makes a move.