Source: Opportunity Treasure Investment Research Society
What is the future direction of the artificial intelligence industry? What opportunities and challenges are enterprises facing on the AI track? How does institutional "hot money" choose investment targets? How are local governments boosting industrial development?
On October 21st, the "Artificial Intelligence Special Session and Lanchi Venture Capital Institution Day" hosted by the Administrative Committee of Nanjing Jianye High-tech Zone and Nanjing Jianye High-tech Investment Group, and hosted by Nanjing Goldfishzui Fund Block Development Center and Chuangyebang was successfully held in Nanjing Goldfishzui Fund Block. At the event, Zhu Tianyu, managing partner of Lanchi Venture Capital, and many other investment celebrities shared their investment "secrets" in the field of artificial intelligence and revealed how they grasped this "outlet". At the same time, 10 start-up companies from this track have passed on the cutting-edge trends of the artificial intelligence industry through roadshows.
Core technologies and models have attracted the most attention
Compared with the Internet industry, the development period and maturity period of artificial intelligence in China are relatively late, but driven by capital and social expectations, the speed of development of artificial intelligence in China is also very fast. According to preliminary estimates, in 2020, the scale of China's artificial intelligence core industry will reach 151.25 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 38.94%.
The substantial growth of the scale of the artificial intelligence industry is inseparable from the continuous innovation of enterprises. At the event on the same day, 10 artificial intelligence enterprises from all over the country, such as Elite Visual Intelligence Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Meiyang Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Wood Ant Robot Technology Co., Ltd., completed the roadshow in front of many expert judges, and carried out in-depth interaction with the expert judges again and again on the core technologies and business models developed by the company.
Suzhou Nadi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. has a unique technical advantage in the field of 3D digital diagnosis, according to founder and CEO Zhou Junhui, AI medical treatment started in the world in 2019, and now the annual growth rate is about 40%, and after 5 years, the global will reach a scale of 20 billion US dollars, of which the imaging field will account for 25%. Nadi Intelligent focuses on the application of ultrasound technology in medical treatment, and the platform developed by the company can analyze the functional characteristics of the underlying protein through digital features, which is a very innovative application platform. Although the technical characteristics are distinct, Zhou Junhui still needs to face the layers of "torture" of the judges, and some judges pointed out bluntly: "Who will pay for this product, who is the customer?" In response, Zhou Junhui responded that the company has two products, hardware is sold to ultrasound, and services are in the cloud, mainly for oncologists.
The key product of Elite Vision is the intelligent inspection robot, which has radiated the national market and also laid out some factories and offices in various provinces and cities. The company's customer base is very wide, distributed in steel, power generation, mines, chemical ports and so on. Chu Fan, assistant to the president of Elite Vision, said that the inspection robot cooperated by the company with Baosteel is the first application of Baosteel in this field. However, there are still judges who ask sharp questions: "If there is an incident, is it the customer's responsibility to pursue you?" In this regard, Chu Fan said that the company will make a prejudgment, and then do small batch procurement after stabilization.
Wood Ant Robot is the 10th roadshow enterprise of the day, the company landed in the large logistics warehousing scene, the main feature of the company's products is to be able to run safely at a speed of 2.6 meters / second, which is leading in the world, and the product software and hardware are independently developed, can achieve 5 minutes of fool-like hands-on operation. In response to the judges' current biggest difficulty, Cao Jianqing, head of sales of Wood Ant Robot, said that because the company is leading the industry and there is no benchmarking company to do guidance, it takes more time to develop some scenarios, including the overcoming of some new difficulties, but it is also because of this that it has formed its own technical barriers.
In the end, 4 enterprises, such as Elite Vision, Cetui Information, Meiyang Innovation, and Wood Ant Robot, won the most investment value award on the same day, and the other 6 companies won the most growth value award.
What are the top investors most worried about
At the event on the same day, Zhu Tianyu made an investment sharing with the theme of "Early Technology Investment: Grasping a New Round of Innovation-Driven Growth Dividends", and instantly "brushed the screen" of many investors' circle of friends.
In the sharing, Zhu Tianyu mentioned a concept - "new interaction". He said that every migration of interactive interfaces has brought about changes in the attention of billions of people, from the PC Internet, mouse and keyboard to the mobile Internet, to the touch screen, so what is the next interface? Zhu Tianyu believes that the composition of this new interactive interface must not be a modification on the original touch screen, it must be a redefined interactive interface after the maturity of many new technologies. And China's accumulation in the past 20 years, whether it is intelligent manufacturing or in the field of artificial intelligence, the accumulation of resources, is now in a state of vibrancy, in the future of the new interactive interface, China has a great opportunity to win a place, and even lead the development of the next step of the world's interactive interface.
After Zhu Tianyu made a wonderful speech, the roundtable forum of the day "gathered masters" and brought more dry goods. Around the development of the artificial intelligence industry, Ji Jundong, a partner at Ping An Venture Capital, believes that at present, the giants are doing some basic things, in fact, there are still many breakthroughs outside the basic level. China's artificial intelligence can have good prospects in many fields in the future.
Wei Gang, a partner of Dachen Caizhi, proposed that for some new technologies and innovations, the vision still needs to be more long-term. He said that institutions still want to be able to embrace new technologies more deeply, and as for what the future holds, everyone has to have a trial and error cost.
In this regard, Cao Tengfei, a partner of Yimi Capital, raised concerns, he said that because the previous "AI Four Little Dragons" let the market see huge losses, this means that the head enterprise has the ability to raise funds and can afford it, but if it is a waist, or a start-up company below the waist, there is no such strong financing ability, and it is a very realistic proposition to survive. In fact, many teams are really good, but after a year or two of being invested, they have disappeared.
WANG Ping, a partner at KIP China, said that because the trend of artificial intelligence is very clear, what he is really worried about is that enterprises that have grown to a certain scale have not quickly bound with artificial intelligence, and on the basis of no binding, it may have taken 1,000 people, 10,000 people to complete the work, and several equipment of competitors have been completed, and the entire industry has been completely subverted. Therefore, in the context of the development of artificial intelligence, investment institutions should invest at least some to avoid being thrown too far by others.
Artificial intelligence "activates" cross-fields
There are different concerns about the industry, but all the investors present are very much aware of the outlet of artificial intelligence, so how should entrepreneurs and investment institutions tap this opportunity together? After the day's event, Zhu Tianyu was interviewed by reporters, who said that he paid more attention to cross-cutting areas because they would lead to more disruptive innovations. And the characteristic of this field is that "the slope is long and the snow is thick", and it can become larger when the snowball is rolled. However, in this direction, it is necessary to gnaw on the "hard bones" to have a chance. Zhu Tianyu also said that the intersection field is often in the definition of a new battlefield, if an entrepreneur is in the gradual innovation, many times is actually in the battlefield circled by others, follow behind others, can only "drink some soup." However, if entrepreneurs can circle a battlefield on their own, they can do what no one can. Of course, this has a premise, that is, the entrepreneur's ability to circle the battlefield must depend on his ability to identify new technologies, and his solution must be that no one has me, in order to match some unique needs.
It is reported that Lanchi Venture Capital has a history of 20 years, starting in Silicon Valley as early as 2005 and starting to invest in China in 2005. At present, it manages more than 10 billion yuan of dual-currency funds, including US dollar funds and RMB funds, invests in more than 150 projects, and the investment stage covers the angel stage to the A round stage in the early stage, and is also the first round leader of more than 80% of entrepreneurial projects.
When answering how reporters can find these capable entrepreneurs, Zhu Tianyu admitted that he values the curiosity of an entrepreneur more. He believes that only people who are truly curious can ponder larger propositions in areas such as industrial development and try to solve the problems that are waiting to be solved. An entrepreneur's curiosity actually directly affects his pattern and vision.
Zhu Tianyu also told reporters that out of such thinking, he even asked a question on zhihu: "How to measure a person's curiosity?" ”
The reason why the importance of curiosity is emphasized is because Zhu Tianyu believes that Lanchi Venture Capital will do early technology investment, identifying it as closer to the real industry than to finance, and hopes to see itself as the allocator of resources. Zhu Tianyu said that he was very fortunate to have this opportunity to be given the ability to allocate resources by the rules of the game in this society, so that he was qualified to allocate resources to support those innovative entrepreneurs. Whether curiosity is exuberant not only affects entrepreneurs, but also an important criterion for the selection of talents within Lanchi Venture Capital, only with strong curiosity, investors can go beyond the cycle and cross the cycle to identify and find out which "big guys" may have subversive changes in the future.
Local governments "hunt" a Nanjing sample of artificial intelligence
Since artificial intelligence as an "outlet" is generally believed to be hot for a long time, then in addition to the active participation of enterprises and investors, many local governments are actually willing to become the main driving force for the vigorous development of the industry.
Taking Nanjing, the city where the event is held, as an example, it has listed artificial intelligence as one of the eight major industrial chains for key development. According to statistics, at present, Nanjing has gathered more than 300 artificial intelligence research and development and application enterprises, involving major fields such as artificial intelligence basic layer, technology layer and application layer, and has formed certain advantages in the fields of intelligent software, intelligent sensors, intelligent chips, and intelligent robots.
At the event on the same day, Yuan Ting, deputy governor of the People's Government of Nanjing Jianye District, also said that artificial intelligence is one of the leading industries in Nanjing Jianye District 1+1. In fact, through long-term accumulation, Nanjing Jianye District has the "fertile soil" for the development of the artificial intelligence industry, that is, it has a solid industrial foundation and a strong growth of the digital economy. According to Yuan Ting, represented by Ali, Xiaomi, NetEase and 58, 13 of the top 20 Internet companies in the country have settled in Jianye, and the head enterprises of the digital economy have formed a gathering trend. By the end of 2020, jian ye's digital economy core industry regulations reached 102 enterprises, operating income of more than 50 billion yuan, added value accounted for more than 10% of GDP.
On the basis of having a deep soil, the establishment of the nanjing goldfish mouth daily roadshow, the country's first capital transaction factor matching platform, has provided a "multiplication effect" for the development of the artificial intelligence industry in Jianye District and even Nanjing. As the country's first capital transaction element matching platform, the Series of activities of Nanjing Goldfish Mouth Daily Roadshow since its inception has always been closely focused on the development of national and regional key industries. In just 5 months, the daily roadshow has held nearly 100 venture capital activities, matching project financing of more than 300 million yuan, a number of domestic and foreign innovative projects have been tried first, and more and more investment and financing institutions have gathered to goldfish.
Wu Shiyong, executive deputy director of the Nanjing Goldfishzui Fund Block Development Center, believes that the Goldfishzui Daily Roadshow is currently doing a platform for gathering resources, with the specific goal of holding 1,000 roadshows within 3 years, so as to create the brand IP of the Goldfishzui Daily Roadshow. In the long run, the daily roadshow of Goldfish Mouth should become a business card of the entire Nanjing fund agglomeration area, and attract more top investment institutions to Jian Ye through the daily roadshow.
Led by Jianye District, Nanjing's efforts in emerging tracks such as artificial intelligence, on the same day, Chuangbang founder and CEO Nan Lixin shared a set of data - in the past 2020, 289 companies in Nanjing have received investment. She believes that among the many popular cities in the Yangtze River Delta, Nanjing's strength is seriously underestimated. At present, through the landing speed and number of venture capital institutions, as well as the number of invested technology companies, Nanjing has shown great development potential.