Author | Sun Jing Yan Dongxue April
Editing | Zhao Yanqiu
Sources | AI Finance (ID:aicjnews)
The most in-depth media in China's new economy
The industry does not understand the business model.
For more than three years since its establishment, the artificial intelligence startup has burned a lot of money, and has done the bottom technology that only giants such as Google will do; it has laid out a big show and claimed to apply artificial intelligence technology to hundreds of industries; When the domestic business has not yet fully stabilized, it has extended its tentacles overseas; even when the company itself is still producing blood, it has begun capital operations and external blood transfusions.
But it is enough to attract attention. A startup company, which has monopolized more than 150 doctoral degrees in the direction of deep learning in artificial intelligence, won over 400 heads of customers at home and abroad, and its annual business growth has exceeded 400% for three consecutive years. More than US$4.5 billion, it has become the highest-valued artificial intelligence startup in the world, and has repeatedly set a record of global AI financing.
Before and after the establishment of Shangtang, the field of computer vision in China has been turbulent. In 2011, Tsinghua graduates Inaki and his classmates founded Contempt; in 2012, MIT postdoctoral researcher Zhu Tsang returned to the country to establish plans to follow; In 2015, Zhou Wei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences set up Yun Cui from Chongqing. By 2017, Shang Tang, Despise, Yun Cong, Yi Yi, stood out from a crowd of start-up companies, becoming a unicorn under the artificial intelligence field with computer vision as the core. .
Record the growth path of these companies, as an analysis of fissile business samples. Take Shang Tang as an example. In the years before and after its establishment, it basically did a few things: From scratch, lay the foundation, develop the underlying technology; from zero to First, to do the project, to place artificial intelligence technology; From one to one hundred, to form a mature product in the industry. Now, it began to take the platform to do ecology.
From this fission process, we can see how Shang Tang is using the high-speed iterative artificial intelligence technology to shake the industry market from multiple dimensions in the industry window period, while avoiding the giants' range with 'escape speed'. Development builds a business territory with great potential.
Read business soup
One day, Yu Kai, the founder of Horizon Robots, could not help but ask Shang Li CEO Xu Li: Do you really invest so much in building your own supercomputer center?
The Supercomputer Center has burned money. Dr. Yan Junjie, a researcher at Shangtang, once made an estimate. Pressing the button labeled 'run' would cost the whole training session at least 500,000 yuan. 'We have more than 150 Ph.D. On the algorithm platform, press 'run'. Xu Lixiao said that this is not counting the annual GPU cluster purchase budget of several hundred million yuan.
Not only that. At the level of deep learning, the vast majority of domestic AI companies rely on Google, Facebook and other artificial intelligence open source frameworks such as Tenserflow and Torch. However, business users have to pay for themselves to use the underlying framework. It is like a software company announced that it wants to Outside the development of a separate operating system, this idea is somewhat bizarre.
Shang Tang’s early investor, IDG Capital Partner Niu Kuiguang was the first to perceive Shang Tang’s aspirations. He remembers that Xu Li’s use of “cat brain” and “monkey brain” analogy explained to him what Shang Tang was trying to do. At present, the rise of artificial intelligence can be compared to 'using the data to build the brain'. If the current level of artificial intelligence technology is in the 'cat brain' stage, most companies are doing is 'how to use the cat brain to catch the perfect Mouse'; and the excitement of Shang Tang is to create a platform to train the 'cat brain' into 'monkey brain', which essentially enhances the ability of the 'brain'. After the brain is upgraded, the machine can learn faster and master more complex skills.
Xu Lihui will not hesitate to emphasize, 'We are an artificial intelligence platform company with Chinese original technology, not a face recognition company.' Their goal is ambitious, so more needs to be done.
Niu Kuiguang still remembers the unique impression the company initially gave him. In 2014, he saw a dissertation of a team of Prof. Tang Xiaoou from the Chinese University of Hong Kong: Applying the DeepID algorithm they developed to face 20,000 faces of data sets, computers. For the first time, the recognition accuracy rate exceeds the human eye. This is an important signal - meaning that computer vision technology may be commercialized. He also discovered that during the period from 2011 to 2013, the top conference of the global computer vision ICCV/CVPR 29 of the top conference papers, Tang Xiaoou team accounted for 14. Niu Kuiguang immediately flew to Hong Kong, visiting Professor Tang.
In Hong Kong's Chinese multimedia lab, he saw demos of five or six computer identification technologies. The research direction was consciously combined with practical applications. For example, a demo was used to turn pictures into impressionist styles. This is now the popular Mito function. 1. The research team also repeatedly emphasized originality, 'We are the source of the ground-breaking algorithm'. These have left Niu Kuiguang a deep impression.
In 2014, IDG Capital raised tens of millions of dollars to help the research team step out of the lab and find the key to AI changing the world in real business. Niu Kuiguang took on quite a bit of risk. After all, in 2014, the AI industry was still unpopular. No one can tell whether technology can be successfully transformed into commercial value.
Going out of the lab, how a new generation of technology companies should go is a question that the founding team has to think about. In the area of artificial intelligence, there have been previous lessons.
For example, in the field of speech recognition technology, technology has long passed the window period of technology pioneers, and the accuracy rate of each PK who is more than 1% is insignificant. Since BAT collectively realized, intelligent speech is the next generation of human-computer interaction. After the entrance, the market that must be seized, the use of funds, and especially the advantages of large platforms, it is possible to crush the startup companies in minutes. In the field of speech recognition, there is no longer a new giant company with unicorns or hundreds of billions of market capitalization.
Technology start-up companies only use the window period for technology to start, enter the industry, or combine with hardware, or combine with data, or combine with traffic to form products or even platform services, and establish barriers before they have the opportunity to reap dividends.
Moreover, the premise of all this is fast enough. Silicon Valley technology innovation in the United States also follows the principle of 'escape speed' - in astrophysics, the escape speed is the minimum speed required for an object to escape its gravitational pull and fly into space.' With the degree of innovation and future development, you can achieve an 'escaping speed' and you will be able to seize the time window and form a big platform. ' Xu Liwen's speed, thinking is extremely fast, like this company's development rhythm.
The establishment of this 'escape speed' is closely related to Shang Tang’s early-stage reserves. Co-founder Xu Bing used 'regardless of cost' to describe the investment of the year. After the financing was in place, they burned a lot of money in two places: First, 'talents' Monopoly', from 2014 to 2016, Shang Tang used packaging solutions to find all the top scientists in this field. He has accumulated a large number of deep-learning talents, including graduating fresh graduates, and formed a powerful talent team. The second is to build hardware. Computing platform, buys more than 6000 GPUs from Nvidia, builds a supercomputing center, and builds powerful production tools.
Xu Li believes that although Moore's Law in the field of hardware has been invalidated in some sense, Big Data, the algorithm has entered an era of new Moore's Law, and the Supercomputing Center is necessary to maintain the algorithm's ability to iterate with Moore's Law. The underlying infrastructure.
Shang Tang’s two investments were initially extremely risky. At one time, the company faced the risk of capital chain fracture. However, with the deepening of commercialization, the advantages are also highlighted. For example, artificial intelligence was seen in an industry before others. Break through the timeline of the industry's red line, prior to other people investing resources in cooperation with an industry head company to engage the industry to land; prior to other people to make open source systems such as Google Tensorflow can not support features.
Xu Li cited an example. The smart phone has the innovative function of “dual camera real-time photo taking”. Shang Tang is the only company in China that uses end-to-end deep learning technology to provide technology. Because this technology involves a number of newly designed networks, it is Existing open source frameworks are not supported.
When we entered many fields, it seemed that there was competition, but as the demand deepened, technical requirements increased, and doing it became a blue ocean. ' Xu Li said.
In addition to the uniqueness of technology, technology landing, especially commercialization of scale, is the biggest test for all AI companies.
Co-founder Yang Fan analyzed that: Shang Tang's strategy is '1+1+X', and a diversified layout is implemented at the same time, rather than only betting on a certain subdivided field. This is not only beneficial to the overall iteration of the algorithm, but also facilitates the card position competition. After all, security, finance, mobile internet, mobile phone, retail, and autopilot are the focus of competition, contempt, and cloud, although each business has its own focus, it is the ideal scenario for commercial landing.
In the vertical field, Shang Tang’s approach is to find the head company first, to explore the AI technology landing, from the project to the product; and then to open up an industry ecology vertically and do the platformization. “In the field of security, for example, when we put the front end The camera, the backend cloud platform and even the whole chain of the chip are open, then it can be the largest industry technology platform.
After accumulating a number of industries, the cross-industry cross-industry appears, and there is also the possibility of a large platform.
AI Financial Club asked Xu Li whether he feared that this strategy would become a public enemy of the industry. 'Jin Yong Fan' Xu Li talked about martial arts: There are many schools in the rivers and lakes that focus on training, you practice knives, and he practices sticks. They are incompatible with each other. Suddenly, there is a spirit of internal skill called Jiuyang Divine Power. After focusing on internal strength cultivation, swords, guns, sticks, and sticks can all be enhanced.
'Shangtang' is to make Jiuyang's magic power into the underlying technology, redefine the practice of knives and sticks, provide it to the industry, then continue to practice knives with knives, continue stick training with sticks, but all have more progress.' Xu Li explained that this formed a strong barrier, while providing the industry with martial arts, rather than enemies. Shang Tang positioning is to empower Baiye.
This kind of positioning is like Bosch in the automotive world and Intel and Qualcomm in the chip industry.
However, the 9 Yang magic was not so good. For some time, in knowing the truth, there were too many former researchers evaluating Shang Tang's researchers. They were not doing the rhythm of a commercial company, and the transition from technology to product was not timely.
At the beginning of the venture, Shang Tang experienced various difficulties. Later, under the leadership of Niu Kuiguang, Shang Tang received a tens of millions of yuan in loans from Pufa Silicon Valley Bank; Ren Quan's StarVC 'snowboarded' to cast A+ rounds. With the help of these two emergency funds, Shang Tang plans to build an engineering force to fight the market.
Until the end of 2016, the concept of artificial intelligence continued to heat up, and a large number of artificial intelligence technology requirements emerged in the market. Business technology broke out before it broke out in many industries.
Difficult to land
In terms of commercialization of scale, technological advantage is not a master key. In the new field of artificial intelligence, startups have been detouring in the early stages of commercialization.
Shang Tang co-founder, employee No. 001, Tsinghua graduate Xu Xiheng recalled that in 2014, Shang Tang, who had just come out of the lab, first made a 'software development kit' for product program promotion. But when they contacted China Mobile, UnionPay and Loan Bao found that 'the demand presented by the other party is not completely related to technology and is an application or function point derived from the technology.'
In the process of going to the market, changing from technical thinking to product thinking is a challenge for Shang Tang team.
The cooperation with Lending Po was a great beginning for Shang Tang’s transformation. Initially, this Internet finance company was very satisfied with the use of face recognition technology for registration and authentication. However, after half a month’s discovery, there were hackers. Through the illegally obtained ID data and photos, the attack system has received subsidies for online promotion activities.
Attacks are ever-changing. There are Gif animations to confuse people's faces. There are holes in the eyes that make the eyeballs move.
However, Shang Tang’s technical team can quickly update the algorithm and destroy the new attack mode within two or three days. After nearly two months of attack and defense, Shang Tang almost defended all attacks on the market.
Shang Fan co-founder, Yang Fan, who is responsible for the engineering team, summed up two experiences in this process: First, it is necessary to have the mentality of serving customers, and to quickly integrate products with customers; Second, it is necessary to maintain strong artificial intelligence originality. R & D capabilities.
In the past era of computer virus defense, it may take several months for each new attack method to emerge. However, thanks to the rapid iterative advantages of artificial intelligence algorithms, if the engine is powerful enough, as long as there is data, it can be coupled with powerful The super-computing capability may solve the problem overnight. This speed, and the design of algorithms based on expert knowledge are not at all in one order of magnitude.
In the first half of 2016, Shang Tang wanted to promote this online face recognition registration and identity authentication program to the entire industry market. At that time, other competitors could not have a good enough anti-attack plan. In the cooperation and interaction, Shang Tang accumulated key technologies and data. Thanks to this, Shang Tang accounted for 70% of the market after two years.
Bonding the head customers to innovate in the industry is a mature game of Shangtang. In 2017, Shangtang and Shenzhen Public Security Bureau launched the application of urban scale security, which will video of thousands or even tens of thousands of cameras in the city. Put together, if necessary, find the city trajectory data of a particular person in the past 3 months.
In the past, the industry could only make video queries on one or more than one camera. The challenge to the technology is comprehensive. The Shenzhen Public Security Bureau will combine the needs of the next three to five years with Shang Tang's technology. When this product is polished After a certain degree, it can be standardized and promoted to other large cities in the country.
The exploration of commercial scale continues. In the traditional software industry, there are currently three major game rules: selling products, selling services, and selling products and services. However, in the field of new artificial intelligence, there is also a state of chaos.
'In a sense, what we provide is intangible. It is a new type of technology implementation in itself. It is not a figurative product.' explained Liu Gang, vice president of business team for Shang Tang.
Is it to provide a common technology, or to create a product that can include different components, or to connect different algorithms to different industries in the underlying platform? In the early days, the team also had brainstorming, but did not come to a standard answer.
Shang Tang tries to unify his thoughts with another path - empowering Baiye. While walking closely to the needs of the industry, he gropes.
But for a start-up company that has been established for less than four years, one of the first realities encountered is that of the major industries it has attempted to enter, some of the old giants of traditional ancestry have long been entrenched.
For example, in the mobile phone industry, traditional visual companies have established a mature cooperative relationship with mobile phone manufacturers. The latter will need to come up with something different.
One of the needs of Xiaomi’s mobile phone is the baby album—when the mobile wallpaper switches, it automatically picks out all the pictures of the baby from the album and replaces them in turn. This is face clustering. The “one to one comparison” with face recognition. Differently, face clustering needs to gather the same person's photos in thousands of photos. After understanding the needs, the research side and the engineering side develop together and finally come up with the products that Xiaomi is willing to pay for.
From the face clustering, Shang Tang has signed a strategic cooperation with OPPO to create an OPPOAR developer platform that uses Shangtang SenseAR platform as an engine to promote the application and popularization of AR in mobile phones.
In addition to these large-scale industries, Shang Tang is also expanding into new industries, such as smart medical care, robotics, remote sensing, and financial big data analysis.
How can startups take care of so many industries? Liu Gang, the vice president of the lead business team, said that priority must be given first.
He also believes that the 'T'-shaped framework is more suitable for its own company: For example, in the security industry, after completing a project and doing the next project, it is necessary to extract common patterns from similar businesses and accumulate a set of 70% of the industry. ~80% common solution, which can greatly increase efficiency. This is the horizontal of the 'T' word, creating a horizontal product matrix.
Even among different industries, technology versatility can be extracted. An interesting example is that the technology of 'scarling people' in the security market can also be used to 'grasp people', such as new retail. August 2017, Suning The first unmanned store 'Suning Sports Biu' opened.
Customers only pay for the first 'brushing' step from the store to checkout payment. 'You will find that there are a lot of key technologies in this area, which have great commonality with the security identification technology we already have.'
On the horizontal side of the 'T' word, around each of the vertical subdivision areas, 'have to walk a little further'. This is the deep understanding of the industry. For example, in the Internet industry, face recognition technology, Plus augmented reality technology.
Sometimes, this half-step more than just technology, it may be business.
In the live broadcast platform, advertisers’ resources have been placed on the Shangtang platform. Shangtang, the broadcast platform and third-party advertising providers can build an ecosystem to better embed ads in the live broadcast. Another example is an Internet cafe or hotel. It takes a few seconds before the face authentication takes place. Putting advertising resources under the line, putting it on the brush face machine will produce extra value.
In this line of thinking, Shang Tang tries to promote identity verification machines at Internet cafes free of charge. Subsequent advertising costs can also be used to open a market faster.
"The more industries that are done, the more cross-maturity effects will emerge between the industries. The more opportunities there are," said Yang Fan, co-founder of Shang Tang. Under this consideration, if you enter a new industry market, there will be no additional costs. Nor will it lead to excessive dispersion of resources.
Shangtang is also using and improving the automated tool chain. 'High-productivity tools represent the speed and ability of innovation to achieve sufficient growth for limited personnel.'
However, there is still a bottleneck in the market. The landing of artificial intelligence in various industries is an ongoing issue. This is an iterative and gradual process. PricewaterhouseCoopers has a rough estimate of the market for AI visual identification technology companies. , They believe that the security plate is the largest. From 2016 to 2020, it will maintain a compound annual growth rate of 90%. But in other industries, it is difficult to reproduce a full bloom.
In this context, Shang Tang has turned his sights overseas to explore a wider margin.
Battle of overseas start
At the academic annual meeting in 2015, Tang Xiaoou and Xu Li met Lao Shizheng. Lao Shiyi is also a heavyweight expert in computer vision. He was sent to Japan to study in the 1980s and was responsible for the Japanese Omron Face Visual Group Technology. people.
The three people talked to Shang Tang, who believed that the level of research and development of artificial intelligence in China might one day surpass Japan. It is believed that this is a good time for entrepreneurship.
Tang Xiaoou soon sent an invitation to Lawsore. In January 2016, Shangtang Japan was established. The team consisted basically of local researchers and engineers.
This is the second year that Shang Tang was founded. When most companies are immersed in local businesses, a new generation of technology start-ups are beginning to consider sea-going strategies earlier. This is not too fast with today, and it is urgent to get even bigger in the window period. The competitive landscape of the layout is closely related.
However, unlike home appliances, telecommunications and Internet technology companies that used to go overseas, Shang Tang is faced with a new topic: How do upstream original technologies land overseas?
Initially, Rauschwah considered pushing Shang Tang’s security technology, which was prosperous in China, to Japan, but soon discovered that it would not work. Japan’s social security environment and China are quite different. The government has no money to invest in. China’s security is in Japan. cold.
'What is Japan's core industry? 'Rakusei needs to think about the unique position of the Japanese market', and we must strive to enter its dominant industries.'
The automotive industry has become a breakthrough for Shangtang in Japan. In this country with Honda, Toyota, Nissan and other globally renowned car companies, the automotive industry accounts for 10% of its GDP. However, due to the lack of awareness of the need for autonomous driving, Japanese car prices In this wave of technological change is not a pioneer.
At the time of the search for opportunities, Japanese automakers also prepared to do a good job in the area of automated driving. In 2016, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry specifically redefined the development goal of autopilot. By 2030, there will be one in every five cars. Self-driving car.
The previous accumulation allowed Forsaken to open the door fortunately. The computer vision technology he developed before was applied to almost all Japanese domestic robots. Coincidentally, the head of Honda’s autonomous driving technology, and he also There has been cooperation in the field of robotics. 'Japanese companies value people who are more worthy of mutual trust and trust. ' The company chosen by Rakusho was very concerned about this person in charge.
However, Honda, ranked in the top five in the world, chose its partner to be extremely cautious. 'For almost a year, Honda conducted a technical evaluation test on Shangtang, and Shang Tang also provided a large number of technical certification services to Honda.' Xu recalls.
Honda is most concerned with computer vision algorithms applied in autopilot to make up for its lack of algorithms and deep learning. This is something that Shang Tang spent a lot of money in early on.
Shang Tang writes code from the bottom line and the original deep learning framework that has been set up provides Honda with R&D support. It also circumvents the intellectual property risks that may arise from open source frameworks. Shang Tang’s self-built supercomputing center has created a closed-loop guarantee. Data security; and the R & D team of Shangye, which is rare in scale, also guarantees abundant research and development capabilities.
In 2017, Shangtang and Honda disclosed their strategic cooperation in autonomous driving. Shangtang Japan Co., Ltd. has played a leading role in the business of car dealers. Before cooperating with Honda, Shang Tang had barely touched autopilot, but it had Identifying pedestrians, roads, vehicle algorithms, these can all be used to autopilot.
Shang Tang’s artificial intelligence technology enters Japan’s preponderant industry car, Shang Tang and Honda have launched strategic cooperation in autonomous driving.
This has enabled Shang Tang's management to see a new path in its maritime strategy: Overseas markets may be able to provide unique but powerful support for China's upstream technology companies that are constantly looking for space.
Shang Tang’s Japanese colleague accepted Honda’s needs, analyzed it, translated it into tasks that Chinese colleagues could understand, and after the completion of the development, the technology was loaded onto Honda’s car and automated driving experiments were conducted.
'People think that artificial intelligence products are realized by Shangtang. In fact, we only completed 50% and the other 50% were completed by customers. 'Wang Xiaogang, Dean of Shangtang Research Institute, explained that this is a process of mutual growth.
The goal of Honda’s cooperation with Shangtang is L4, which is the level of autonomous driving. The highest level is L5. L4’s autonomous driving means that people only make decisions in certain complex terrain or bad weather conditions. The next system can handle it alone.
The two sides plan to achieve automatic driving of general roads by 2025. Compared to Japan, China and the United States have performed more aggressively on the automatic driving schedule. Google claims to complete the delivery of the first L4-class vehicles by the end of 2018, Baidu said. In 2021, L4 class autonomous vehicles will be produced in volume.
In addition to in-vehicle operations, industrial automation and transportation infrastructure are also developed industries in Japan. Shang Tang hopes to provide artificial intelligence technology support for Japanese industries in these areas. The Labors team is seeking more opportunities for industry cooperation.
In addition to Shang Tang, other AI start-up companies are exploring the boundaries of overseas markets. For example, Intuit Technology set up its first overseas office in Singapore in January 2018 to form a team that focused on exporting security technology to the Southeast Asian market. 2018 In February of this year, Despatch also partnered with the Osathanugrah family of Thailand's OSOTSPA Group to introduce the artificial intelligence technology of the 'City Brain' project into Thailand's public safety protection.
The unicorn enterprises have just begun their journey to the sea. How to fight the market overseas is far from being a system. It is still the subject of this batch of artificial intelligence upstream technology companies.
External blood transfusion
As Shang Tang continues to make progress on the ground of artificial intelligence technology, a series of capital news related to it are intensively exposed:
Shang Tang Technology announced the completion of the 600 million U.S. Dollar C round of financing, setting a new global record for the field of artificial intelligence;
Shang Tang and the Shanghai Municipal Government have signed a framework agreement on strategic cooperation. The investment in Shanghai within five years will be no less than 6 billion yuan, forming an agglomeration effect of the artificial intelligence industry;
Shang Tang set up an artificial intelligence industry fund to invest in artificial intelligence industry applications;
Shang Tang took the lead in the round 21 billion yuan financing of the 51VR startup company...
A startup company that is still developing its hematopoietic capabilities, why do we have to do blood transfusions?
"There was indeed discussion and debate within the company about this matter." Niu Kuiguang, partner of IDG Capital, told AI Finance. In his opinion, Shang Tang's own hematopoiesis is not a problem now, because Shang Tang is already profitable.
For Shang Tang, the most pressing issue at this stage is that from one to one hundred, it is to build an artificial intelligence platform and become a platform-type enterprise for algorithm production.
The landing of artificial intelligence is still at an early stage. How to quickly release energy in all walks of life requires platform and ecology. At the same time, as artificial intelligence technology matures, there will be a large number of new applications and new scenarios. If Shang Tang can drive an industry Innovation groups will go forward together and benefit their own development.
In fact, it is not uncommon for a new generation of artificial intelligence startups to use capital tools to cultivate an ecological game. Xiaomi has his own strategic investment department and Shunyi Fund, which can help it nurture a huge millet ecosystem. ' Lei Jun’s style of play , It is hoped that Xiaomi will quickly do a large scale. 'A person from Xiaomi said to AI Finance and Economics that it plans to set up a strategic investment department last year. According to public information, it has invested in AI chips and biopharmaceutical companies, all of which focus on ecology.
'Because of different purposes, we will have some differences in investment logic, project income, and risk assessment with professional organizations such as Sequoia and IDG Capital.' Xu Bing, head of strategic investment at Shangtang Co-founder, explained.
Xu Bing is also a student brought by Tang Xiaoou. The co-founder is less than 30 years old, but has led Shang Tang to complete A round, B round of financing and C round of financing, and also the MIT TR35 winner. 'Let the capital The market can fully recognize the value of the company and find the best shareholders to support us.
Now, Xu Bing has established the Shangtang Warfare Division and formed a cross-border team, both as a strategic investment of its own and also as an operator of the Tang Industry Fund, hoping to use capital levers to leverage the larger artificial intelligence ecosystem.
Although Shang Tang is currently only publicizing an investment project for 51VR, AI Financial Services has learned that it has invested in 6 projects and plans to invest in more than 10 projects, including AI chips, medical care, Internet of Things, mobile phones and the Internet. Also includes games.
Shang Tang led the round of 2.1 billion financing in the B round of startup 51VR. Both parties may integrate VR and identification technology in the future to develop unexpected technologies and applications.
Xu Bing disclosed that the team has focused on the equity of some growth companies rather than the early projects. 'The chemical reaction can be more intense and both parties have enough resources to deepen cooperation and promote business.'
By investing in shares, after establishing a fuller relationship of mutual trust, we can not only have more stable customer relationships, but also can develop products together and play markets and industries together. This satisfies the need for rapid landing of artificial intelligence technology.
Shangtang Wargames also made the industrial chain layout according to the rhythm of its own product development. Last year, Shangtang had announced a set of products. It simply means that it can achieve the 'plane detection' function in the augmented reality (AR) platform. You shoot with your mobile phone. A table, then you can play against this desktop, this is a new form of game. In order to coordinate with this business, Shangtang war cast has gone to see some high-growth game company targets, giving money also gives technology.
At the end of last year, Shang Tang announced the 51VR war project, which is another case. Shang Tang did not plan to do VR technology development, 'VR is similar to movie rendering, even the algorithm is not the same'. Therefore, this investment should be classified as forward-looking. Sexual layout. Both parties may also integrate these two types of technologies in the future to complete the development of a new technology that you can not imagine.
In the latest round of C financing, the Alibaba Group, the lead investor, as well as investment companies and strategic partners such as the Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek and Suning, will also provide Shangtang with more extensive application scenarios and stronger overseas distribution capabilities. Become a business development platform and boost the power of ecology.
'The capital's approach is very flexible. More often than not, it tests Common sense and understanding of industry and technology. ' Xu Bing told AI Finance, 'You must be able to quickly absorb nutrients from other people.' Technical product team, and investors, like Niu Kuiguang of IDG, Ren Quan of StarVC and Wu Shangzhi of CDH.
Among the many investors, Ren Quan is an expert on Shang Tang. 'Open minded, is Ren Quan's greatest feature. ' In Xu Bing's opinion, Ren Quan is a very hard worker. After transitioning investment from the performing arts industry, Learning, a lot of MBA, EMBA classes'. When the average person could not imagine that auto-driving could have happened three years ago, Ren Quan's mentality was very open.
In fact, the previous generation of upstream technology companies, such as Intel and Qualcomm, only had their own strategic investment departments after they had developed to a certain scale. On the one hand, they cultivated ecology, and on the other hand, they acted as front-to-back investments in new fields. Today, artificial intelligence A new generation of companies in the upper reaches of the field, earlier and faster, as a business operation.
'Shangtang wants power plants, not household diesel generators.' Vice President of Qualcomm, Shen Jin, general manager of Venture Capital China, told AI Finance. He understood the ambitious goals of Shang Tang's management team. Qualcomm is a strategic investor. Invested in Shang Tang last year, which also opens the possibility for combining artificial intelligence and chip technology.
At present, quickly opening more industries and rapidly becoming a platform company is the goal of Shangtang’s war effort. Many Shangtang employees believe that Shangtang has completed the transformation from project to product in some industries and becomes a product-level company. Next, it is exploring platformization, in which capital means will play an indispensable role.
Shangtang C's round of financing far exceeds all competitors. Shang Tang's current technological breakthrough is that product shipments and sales are several times those of peers.
However, it is still a matter of time before artificial intelligence really lands in all walks of life. Shang Tang still needs to prove himself. In the field of this powerful enemy, its window period is only three or five years. Can Shang Tang become a platform type? The company, more depends on its evolutionary speed.