文 | 品牌工厂BrandsFactory
China's leading AR OEMs unexpectedly ushered in a wave of financing this year, and the financing amount is more than 100 million yuan.
For example, in July, INMO completed a Series B financing of nearly 100 million yuan. This round of financing was jointly participated by Sichuan Development Hongxin Fund, Chenghua Science and Technology Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Jiangxi Zhonghuan Investment Group. According to public information, INMO Shadow Technology, which was established in December 2020, was formerly known as the Coolpad AR Division, and its founder was Yang Longsheng, the former general manager of the Coolpad Group's Wearable Division.
The last round of financing of Yingmu Technology was in 2022, with an exclusive investment of nearly 10 million US dollars by Zhiwen Group.
Thunderbird Innovation, Rokid, and XREAL, which are known as the "AR Four Little Dragons" along with Yingmu Technology, have also received a new round of 100 million yuan financing in 2024.
In January this year, Rokid completed a C+ round of financing of nearly 500 million yuan, which was led by the Hefei Municipal Government as a whole and introduced a number of financial and strategic investment institutions to participate. In terms of this amount, it can be regarded as the largest single strategic financing in the domestic AR field in recent years.
The main body of Rokid is Hangzhou Lingban Technology Co., Ltd., which was established in 2014, and the founder Zhu Mingming is the former head of Alibaba M Studio.
Also in January, XREAL announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing of 60 million US dollars (about 434 million yuan), which has not disclosed the investor. Founded in 2017, XREAL's founder, Xu Chi, is a Silicon Valley-style technology entrepreneur.
In March this year, Thunderbird Innovation, which was incubated by TCL Electronics, also completed a new round of financing of 100 million yuan, which was jointly invested by Huatai Zijin, Yanchuang Group and other institutions.
After the "AR Four Little Dragons" enter 2024, the phenomenon of focusing on capital and injecting a new round of 100 million-level funds may be related to the big sales of AI glasses products in Q4 of 2023 in the eyes of senior industry insiders.
Li Hongwei, founder and CEO of Thunderbird Innovation, has also publicly stated that with the help of AI, AR glasses will become a mass consumer product in 2025, and the global sales of AR glasses will exceed 10 million units in 2026.
The unexpected popularity of AI glasses
In September 2023, the second-generation product Ray-Ban Meta (hereinafter referred to as Meta Ray-Ban) co-branded by Meta and Ray-Ban sold more than 1 million units after 4 months of release with a starting price of $299 (about 2166 yuan), and received a high evaluation of 4.3/5 on Amazon.
Relevant agencies predict that the annualized sales of Meta Ray-Ban are expected to exceed 2 million units.
The high-profile Vision pro, which is a leader in various technologies, only sold 200,000 units in the first batch. According to data from market research firm IDC, its sales will not exceed 500,000 units this year. At the same time, IDC data shows that in 2023, the global sales of AR glasses will be 480,000 units, and the sales of smart glasses will be 1.01 million units. In Q1 2024, the global shipment of AR glasses will be 100,000 units, and the shipment of smart glasses will be 260,000 units.
In other words, Meta Ray-Ban sold only one product in the global sales of smart glasses for a year.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the sales data of 1 million is enough to verify the feasibility of the product. In other words, in this big year of entrepreneurship brought by AI+ hardware, AI glasses equipped with TWS earphones and cameras like Meta Ray-Ban and whose shape is close to ordinary glasses are already a clear and definite track.
For example, Bill · Gates said in a podcast not long ago that the popularity of AI will profoundly change our lives and ways, and headphones and smart glasses will become two key areas of AI hardware.
"I guess at the price point of 300 US dollars (about 2,183 yuan), the no-display AI technology will be a very successful product." ·Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta who attended the 51st SIGGRAPH conference not long ago, also vaguely affirmed Meta Ray-Ban.
Founded in 2012 and a leader in VR, light engine distributor Avegant (a light engine is a tiny projector that projects visual content onto the lenses of AR glasses) also plans to work with smart glasses manufacturers to design AI glasses that are as small, lightweight, and normal-looking as possible.
Ed Tang, CEO of Avegant, said in an interview with the media: "In three to five years, I think the number of users of AI glasses will reach hundreds of millions, which is the minimum viable product that users will soon adopt to be AI-driven. Of course, this may also happen next year, and perhaps eventually 1.2 billion units will be sold annually. ”
Major hardware manufacturers and AR OEMs have bet
Based on the dazzling sales data of Meta Ray-Ban, the judgment of major overseas head Internet or hardware companies, domestic hardware manufacturers and AR OEMs are also betting on AI glasses.
Sony, which provides camera sensors for Meta Ray-Ban, told the brand factory: "This was originally customized for them, and the output was very small, but after Meta Ray-Ban came out of the circle, during April this year, almost all major domestic manufacturers came to consult." "
In May of the past year, ByteDance acquired Oladance, which focuses on OWS fully open wearable audio products, at a price of 3-400 million yuan. The outside world speculates that ByteDance, which folded on Pico, will launch AI glasses products through this acquisition, combining the technology and experience of past glasses projects.
Luo Yonghao, the founder of the original Hammer Technology, established the AR startup "Thin Red Line" in 2022, which was revealed in May this year and is urgently recruiting AI R&D engineers and other positions. There is speculation that Thin Red Line will launch an AI eyewear product in September this year.
In fact, as early as the end of 2023, domestic manufacturers have already started to act after seeing Meta Ray-Ban's sales data.
For example, the "all-weather smart glasses" QIDI ONE INFINITY, which will be launched in November 2023, is a Meta-like Ray-Ban AI glasses, with the shape of ordinary glasses, plus the functions of shooting and headphones, it also adds a binocular full-color display, and is equipped with an AI assistant.
Founded in December 2021, its founder, Zhang Huimin, served as the first chief architect of Huawei's terminals, the general manager of Xiaomi's flagship phone, and the co-founder and CTO of Black Shark.
Thunderbird, one of the "AR Four Little Dragons", is connected to the self-developed large-model intelligent assistant RayNeo AI in the RayNeo X2 Lite, which will be launched at the end of 2023. During the Indiegogo crowdfunding period, the product ranked in the top 1 of the most popular products for two consecutive days.
After entering 2024, not only ChinaJoy has made the debut of a number of AI glasses products, but also the press conferences of major hardware manufacturers, as well as the appearance of AI glasses.
As early as 2019, Huawei launched smart glasses products with Gentle Monster, a trendy glasses brand, and began the commercialization of smart glasses.
On May 15 this year, at the summer full-scene new product launch conference, its new generation of smart glasses products——Smart glasses2Box-frame sunglasses,Begin to keep up with the direction of AI glasses,Not only equipped with HuaweiHarmonyOS4Operating system,And access to Huawei PanguAIThe large model,Users can have a natural and smooth dialogue and intelligent interaction with Xiaoyi,Price2299element。
OPPO's Air Glass, Xiaomi's Mijia smart audio glasses, and Xingji Meizu's MYVU have all introduced AI large models and upgraded hardware such as shooting and audio in the new round of smart product glasses released this year, all of which are on par with Meta Ray-Ban.
Different from the upgraded products of major hardware manufacturers, AR brand Li Weike directly launched the brand's first AI glasses at the end of April - MetaLensChat, the product focuses on AI voice interaction capabilities, users can use voice interaction to make AI a personal assistant, priced at 699 yuan.
Li Weike was founded in October 2021 by Ru Yi, the former head of intelligent terminals at Alibaba A.I.Labs and general manager of Tmall Genie Hardware & Products. Li Weike is not only the brand name, but also the name of the company's avatar, aiming to create China's first AI+AR technology trendy brand.
Focusing on AI+AR, there is also a tribute to the unknown established in 2022, the founder of the brand, Wu Dezhou, who served as the COO of Hammer Technology, the head of Huawei's Honor product line, and the president of ByteDance's Xinshi Laboratory, is a hardware boss. Paying tribute to the ARKnow A1 released by the unknown in July this year, it is claimed to be "the first AR glasses that deeply integrates AI" ARKnow A1, equipped with the self-developed Aladdin OS.
Will there be 100 smart glasses projects?
"The lively appearance of this track is a bit like the grand scene of VR in 2016." A veteran of the XR industry lamented this.
It's just that unlike VR glasses, the current AI glasses are closer to the shape of ordinary glasses, and everyone is also benchmarking Meta Ray-Ban, so co-branding or cooperation with well-known glasses brands has also become a new trend.
According to the statistics of the brand factory, starting from 2021, brands including Huawei, Rokid, Thunderbird, Meizu and Li Weike have all chosen to cooperate with Bose Glasses, and the cooperation content is mostly channel.
Recently, there were media reports that Francesco Milleri, CEO of Ray-Ban's parent company, European eyewear giant Essilor Luxottica, said that Meta may take a stake in the company. The two parties are in talks to acquire a minority stake in the Ray-Ban sunglasses manufacturer and hope to step up the development of smart glasses.
The cooperation and binding with traditional glasses manufacturers seems to have become the best choice for smart glasses companies to break through the user circle and create better product forms. According to Statista, global shipments of glasses (excluding contact lenses) will reach 1 billion pairs in 2023, and glasses, as the most portable wearable device and the closest device to the human eye, are expected to exceed 10 million sales in the future with AI addition.
Of course, more importantly, Meta's second-generation product chooses Ray-Ban's most classic style, while the second-generation product provides customers with three new clear frame colors, and there are more than 150 frames, lens combinations, and sizes to choose from on the Ray-Ban Remix platform. It is enough to meet the needs of customers on the street, and it is no longer a silly glasses that can only be worn at home.
"After 3 years of making glasses, there is still a big difference between glasses and watches. To a certain extent, you can say that a piece of jewelry or a watch itself looks good or not, but the glasses are not whether they look good or not, but how you look when you wear them. This makes the category of glasses very personalized. Ru Yi, the founder of Li Weike, mentioned in a public sharing that users have an aesthetic experience of wearable products such as glasses.
"I think it's positioned as a casual item, a lifestyle item, not a productivity tool." A Meta Ray-Ban user shared his experience on social networks.
Not long ago, someone judged that in the second half of this year, there will be a resurrection of 100 smart glasses projects.
Combined with the inventory of brand factories and the news revealed by XR practitioner Thomas: "From the supply chain news, it is known that more than 20 brands are already making products with similar concepts. Combined with the teams that are getting financing, it is estimated that there are more than 50 teams trying to make similar products. "The number 100 is not much.
"The team behind more than 100 pairs of glasses is making a comeback, and the path of consensus is too strong, and it is difficult to shine, and there is a high probability that it will simply repeat the old path of Google Glass." An industry insider commented.
According to the statistics of Dongguan Customs, which belongs to Huangpu Customs, in the first quarter of this year, the export value of smart glasses in Dongguan reached 404 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 508.5%.
Even if there are various concerns such as bulky products, battery life, and substandard voice technology, from smart headsets to smart glasses, the AI glasses defined by Meta Ray-Ban are more like a comprehensive product with both smart wear and fashion jewelry. At the same time, the feasibility of AI ports on smart glasses has been verified, and users' acceptance of such head-mounted hardware electronic consumer products has been confirmed.
Based on these, what Meta Ray-Ban brings to the industry is not a definite track, but a huge imagination in smart glasses.