Zhi DongXi (public number: zhidxcom)
Author | Jiannen
Edit | Heart edge
Last month, SoftBank CEO Son Zhengyi publicly announced that SoftBank would launch a new generation of artificial intelligence robot "smabo". The name is taken from the combination of "smart" and "robot", which means that it will be more powerful.
This is not the first time ThatSoftBank has tried it out in the field of robotics, as early as 2014, Son Zhengyi debuted with the humanoid robot pepper developed by SoftBank Robotics. Three years later, SoftBank acquired Boston Dynamics, a "net red" robot company.
However, the development of Pepper and Boston Dynamics in the hands of SoftBank has not been smooth, this year Pepper was exposed to the news of suspension of production and layoffs, Boston Dynamics was also sold by SoftBank to Hyundai Motors, SoftBank only retained 20% of the shares. For a time, news came about SoftBank's intention to reduce the robot business.
And the official announcement of SoftBank Smab directly shattered these rumors. Son Zhengyi's robot dream is still being done, and it is getting bigger and bigger!
It is reported that SoftBank Group has invested in 18 robot-related companies through its funds. Especially this year, Son Zhengyi seems to be particularly optimistic about Chinese companies, successively leading the investment of Youai Zhihe, Siling Robot, and Qinglang Intelligence, and continuing to "support the growth of various enterprises from the standpoint of a capitalist".
Why is Son so passionate about robots? Through SoftBank's investment layout for 7 consecutive years, he outlined what kind of robot territory? After changing hands with Boston Dynamics, what will be the direction of this long-planned SoftBank robot story?
To go back to the beginning of Son's robot dream, we must start with a well-known animation film "Astro Boy".
Son Zhengyi once told the media that he was attracted by the story of astro boy at a very young age, became an "iron fan" of astro boy, and dreamed of creating a robot with emotions like as astro boy.
This dream stayed with Son, until he met the French startup Aldebaran Robotics, and the story of Son, SoftBank and Robots really began to unfold.
Aldebaran Robotics' main product is a humanoid robot called nao, which is an intelligent programmable robot widely used in education and academia, and also has functions such as performance and home escort. Son believes this is very close to his dream robot that can become a human assistant and companion.
Humanoid robot nao
In 2012, Son decided to invest in Aldebaran Robotics, acquired about 80% of its shares for $100 million, and formed SoftBank Robotics, headquartered in France, to develop the humanoid service robot Pepper.
Two years later, in 2014, Son led Pepper to a press conference.
At this time, Son Zhengyi had high expectations for the future of robots, and he made a bold statement: "We must strive to create a country where humans and robots coexist, and let Japan's competitiveness return to the world's first by 2050." ”
Son's goal is to "give the robot a heart" and hopes that Pepper can become a companion in the family. Pepper's biggest highlight is that it is equipped with an "emotion engine" that allows robots to recognize people's emotions and react accordingly.
In 2015, Pepper officially began to sell to the market, and the road to commercialization began. Once released, Pepper was quickly hit, and the first batch of 1,000 peppers on sale was snapped up in a minute.
Son Anderson and Pepper
At this time, Sun Zhengyi can be described as full of spirit, SoftBank's robot territory is gradually unfolding under his careful orchestration, and more and more robot companies are either invested by SoftBank or acquired by SoftBank.
In 2017, SoftBank threw an olive branch to Boston Dynamics, a "net celebrity" robotics company, and brought it under its wing for $921 million (about 5.92 billion yuan).
In addition to these two acquisitions, SoftBank's investment footprint also includes a number of robot products or technology companies, such as brain corporation specializing in robotic artificial intelligence technology, feed robotics manufacturer of autonomous mobile robots (amr), and berkshire grey, a warehouse robotics company.
In addition, there are some "non-mainstream" robot companies in Son's robot empire, such as Zume, which uses robots to make pizza.
At this time, it seems to be a thriving, but no one can imagine that a crisis is brewing, sun zhengyi is proud of the two "net red" pepper and Boston Dynamics has become the waterloo of its "robot empire", and the construction of SoftBank's robot territory will also turn.
Pepper's commercialization road did not develop along the route envisioned by Son Zhengyi, and once it was in trouble due to expensive prices, simple functions, unclear product positioning, etc., and the sales situation was far from meeting expectations.
Users who have purchased peppers have found that it is not as glamorous as advertised, many tasks cannot be completed as long as they are slightly more complicated, and the emotional interaction function that Sun Zhengyi strives to praise is just "chicken ribs", and many times it is more like a pre-set program and does not play any substantive role.
Pepper's spectacle quickly dissipated when it first went on sale, and as people's curiosity about pepper faded, they stopped paying for it.
In June, Reuters reported that Pepper had stopped production last year and that SoftBank planned to lay off half of its robotics company's employees in France this year. In addition, SoftBank has also laid off its employees in sales operations in the United States and the United Kingdom. The pepper, which once had unlimited scenery, has basically come to an end.
Pepper reportedly sold only about 27,000 units since its launch in 2014 and was discontinued. Correspondingly, in fiscal 2015 alone, the loss of SoftBank's robot business was as high as $1 billion, and in 2017, it was insolvent.
At the same time, Boston Dynamics, which swept the Internet, was also applauded, and the road to commercialization has not been smooth.
Boston Dynamics is well known for its four-legged robot "spot" and bipedal robot "atlas". After SoftBank acquired Boston Dynamics, it has always wanted to promote the commercialization of its robot products. It wasn't until June 2020 that Nearly 30-year-old Boston Dynamics finally launched its first commercial product, spot.
Boston Dynamics four-legged robot spot
The robot is priced at nearly 500,000 yuan, and such a price is difficult to bring too many sales to it. According to Bloomberg, by the end of 2020, the "spot" has only sold about 400 units.
On the other hand, the development of Boston Dynamics bionic robots seems to be a bottomless pit that requires a lot of continuous investment. Perhaps it was the disproportionate stakes to the benefits that led SoftBank to finally decide to sell Boston Dynamics.
In June this year, Hyundai Motor bought 80% of Boston Dynamics from SoftBank, and the story of SoftBank and Boston Dynamics came to a temporary end.
SoftBank's successive folding of the Pepper and Boston Dynamics did not change Son's robot dream. At this year's softbank world 2021 conference, Son Zhengyi once again said: "The key to Japan's revitalization is intelligent robots. ”
At the same time, Son Zhengyi also announced that SoftBank Robot will launch a new generation of more powerful intelligent robots "smabo", which will be 10 times more competitive than humans, which will liberate people from boring work and engage in more value-added work.
Obviously, Son Zhengyi still has high expectations for robots.
Son Zhengyi talks about the efficiency of robots
However, the uneven commercialization of Pepper and Boston Dynamics has made SoftBank begin to change the strategic direction of robots.
Combined with SoftBank's recent investment in various robot companies, especially in the past year, it can be seen that rather than directly participating in the research and development and manufacturing of robots, SoftBank may appear more in the form of investment-related enterprises in the field of robotics in the future.
This was also confirmed by Son's public remarks, saying: "Instead of basically running on their own, in the future, I will choose to support the growth of various enterprises from the position of a capitalist." ”
Robots are still one of the key areas of focus of SoftBank Group, and Sun Zhengyi is still extremely confident in the current layout of SoftBank in the field of robotics.
He told Nihon Keizai Shimbun: "SoftBank's investment in various fields, from autonomous driving to surgery, cleaning, warehousing, etc., has created the most advanced intelligent robot 'enterprise army'."
Looking at SoftBank's investment in the field of robotics, it is indeed worth letting him have such confidence. According to public information, There are about 300 AI-related unicorn companies invested by SoftBank, of which 18 are directly related to robots.
SoftBank invests in some robotics companies
As Son Zhengyi said, these companies include several hot areas in the current robot industry, such as surgical robots, warehousing logistics robots, and food delivery robots.
From these investments, it is not difficult to see that compared with the previous SoftBank investment in pepper and Boston Dynamics personally entering the field of robotics, at this stage, SoftBank's investment in robots has become significantly more pragmatic and turned to the field of robots with stronger commercialization capabilities.
For example, in recent years, the rise of e-commerce has led to a sharp increase in the demand for warehousing and logistics, and various mobile robots have played an extremely important role in warehouses, logistics and other scenarios. Naturally, SoftBank's investment map also has a large number of warehousing and logistics robot companies.
For example, food delivery robots have become "restaurant must-haves" in recent years, from the national chain of Haidilao to street restaurants are introducing food delivery robots to serve restaurants, and food delivery robot companies have also mushroomed.
SoftBank, which is good at grasping the "future trend", naturally cannot let go of this shareholder wind, and has invested in the American food delivery robot manufacturer Bear Robotics and the head manufacturer of China's food delivery robot, Qinglang Intelligence.
In September this year, Kinlore Intelligent announced the completion of a $200 million Series D financing, led by The SoftBank Vision Fund. And SoftBank and Kinlore Intelligence have reached a global strategic partnership to expand the use of robots in the service industry.
All kinds of service robots of Qinglang
In addition to Qinglang Intelligence, domestic mobile robot manufacturer Youai Zhihe, intelligent robot system research and development and application service provider Siling Robot has also received softbank investment this year.
SoftBank's consistent investment strategy is to invest huge sums of money in creative startups and exchange huge investments for huge returns. At present, warehousing logistics robots, food delivery robots, etc. are developing in an increasingly mature direction, and compared with Pepper and Boston Dynamics, the investment in these areas is obviously easier to get a return.
Regarding the future of the entire robot industry, Son Zhengyi also has his own views. He believes that the intelligent robot industry will be like an iPhone sweeping the function machine, completely replacing the traditional robots that are programmed in advance by people.
Therefore, in The future investment of SoftBank, various types of robots with artificial intelligence with stronger commercialization capabilities and more clear application scenarios may be the focus.
SoftBank is a company that is very good at "investing in the future", from investing in Alibaba to investing in various robot companies now, so many years of "investment" and "buying, buying and buying" are all such logic.
At present, robots are a very hot topic, from the industrial field to the consumer field, robots have a very broad application prospects, which is why SoftBank has always had a high enthusiasm for robots.
However, SoftBank is afraid of burning money all the time, Boston Dynamics and Pepper are good, and the commercialization ability is weak and can only be painfully cut. For Son, robots with superpowers like Astro Boy are long-term dreams, but investing in smart robots that are more mature and commercialized may be the easier way to see returns.