Author丨Ding Li
Edit丨Li Zhen
Since the first aircraft was launched in the early 20th century, various means of transportation have successively seized the sea, land and air space, and low-altitude air space has become one of the few blanks. As technology gradually matures, various types of manned or unmanned aerial vehicles are entering low altitudes below 1,000 meters, and the "low-altitude economy" is ready to go.
low-altitude logistics distribution and low-altitude passenger transport are still in the exploration stage, and are still a ray of imagination that science fiction has entered reality; and the low-altitude drone remote sensing application market has matured and entered a stage of rapid development.
is based on geospatial intelligent technology and builds a low-altitude intelligent network through drone base stations. The drone remote sensing network has achieved disruptive innovation in the drone industry. It can conduct high-precision, high-frequency, fully automatic, three-dimensional and intelligent monitoring of surface resources and social and economic activities. It is an important member of digital new infrastructure.
Pan Yifeng, general manager of Guangzhou Zhongke Cloud Tu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongke Cloud Tu"), estimated that the market volume of "low-altitude drone remote sensing network exceeds 100 billion yuan, and in many market segments, Zhongke Cloud Tu occupies half of the market."
Since its establishment in 2017, Zhongke Cloud Tu has successively developed the "Cloud Nest" series of drone intelligent base stations, geospatial intelligence (GeoAI) algorithm libraries, drone remote sensing network operation systems, etc., providing digital solutions for air-ground linkage and cloud-edge collaboration for application scenarios such as power inspection, township (street) grassroots governance and smart cities. has increased its operating income by more than 40 times in five years, and by 2021, it has achieved an output value of 90 million yuan and a profit of 20 million yuan.
(Pan Yifeng, general manager of Guangzhou Zhongke Cloud Tu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., photo provided by the interviewee)
Pioneering UAV Grassroots Governance Application
In 2016, the Guangdong Academy of Sciences introduced the team of Academician Zhou Chenghu to establish Zhongke Cloud Tu to achieve the rapid transformation of scientific and technological achievements into industrial applications.
Guangdong Academy of Sciences provides technical accumulation and team foundation for Zhongke Cloud Map. In addition, Zhongke Cloud Tu is also actively carrying out industry-university-research cooperation with Sun Yat-sen University, Wuhan University, Jinan University, MIT and other universities. Currently, the proportion of scientific researchers in enterprises reaches 30%, and the average annual R&D investment accounts for about 15%.
's strong technical support has brought fruitful scientific research results to the company. At present, Zhongke Cloud Tu has obtained 57 software copyright registrations, 29 utility model patent authorizations and 10 invention patent authorizations. Another 55 invention patent applications are being accepted, and have been rated as a national high-tech enterprise, Guangzhou "seed unicorn" enterprise, etc.
The "last mile" from scientific research to products is a key issue that Zhongke Cloud Map needs to solve. Pan Yifeng said, "We have implemented a cooperation model of 'front store and back factory' with Guangdong Academy of Sciences. Through the transformation mechanism of 'science-technology-engineering-product', the scientific research results of the Academy of Sciences can be productized smoothly; when we encounter bottlenecks in the implementation of technology, we will also mobilize the scientific research resources of the Academy of Sciences."
On this basis, Zhongke Cloud Map has developed core businesses such as power inspection, smart towns, and grassroots governance.
In terms of power inspection, Zhongke Cloud Map has served more than 30 provincial power companies, with a total inspection mileage of transmission lines exceeding 20,000 kilometers, and a inspection pole tower exceeding 80,000 bases, which is more than 50 times higher than manual inspection efficiency. In addition, the company has also taken the lead in the industry to launch substation drone inspection solutions, and has provided intelligent inspections for more than 600 substations (converter stations), ranking first in the market segment, and the market share in the north and south reaches 60% and 50% respectively.
In recent years, with the increase in the intensity of urban grassroots work, the pain points of grassroots governance such as heavy burdens, few staffs, and backward means have become increasingly prominent.
The "Opinions on Strengthening the Modernization of Grassroots Governance System and Governance Capacity" released in April 2021 also proposes that by improving the grassroots smart governance system, promoting technologies such as intelligent perception, improving basic data such as township (street), village (community) geographic information, and improving the level of digital and intelligent grassroots governance.
Against this background, Zhongke Cloud Map uses the drone remote sensing network as the fulcrum to pry open a new blue ocean.By providing the government with a full set of services from software and hardware facilities construction, governance model customization, operation team building, and operation service implementation, Zhongke Cloud Map can provide dozens of inspection services to multiple departments such as urban management, environmental protection, transportation, land, public security, and emergency response, reducing costs and improving quality for grassroots comprehensive governance work.
At present, related application cases have been implemented in many provinces such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Jiangxi. Taking Danzao Town, Nanhai, Foshan as an example, the drone inspection service provided by Zhongke Cloud Tu can conduct a 7×24-hour "white + black" inspection of local illegal buildings. It can be discovered and intervened during the entry stage of building materials, thereby promptly extinguishing the signs of "two violations" buildings, reducing the cost of demolition and construction, and avoiding the escalation of grassroots conflicts.
Pan Yifeng believes that with the normalization of epidemic prevention and control work, drones will make great achievements in epidemic prevention publicity, prevention and control point inspection, etc., and can play a precise positioning effect in demarcation of prevention and control areas, and guide relevant departments to reasonably set up water and horse fences to avoid waste of social resources.
is expected to achieve a output value of 600 million yuan and a profit of 120 million yuan by 2025. Pan Yifeng said that grassroots governance will become the business segment that has contributed the most. According to his estimate, there are 41,636 townships across . Calculated at 500,000 yuan/town/year, the market size of grassroots governance business will reach about 20 billion yuan each year.
"The market has not yet started yet, and the related businesses are still in the stage of setting a benchmark. Zhongke Cloud Map is a pioneer in this field." In 2022, Zhongke Cloud Map plans to add this business to 50 townships (streets).
Beach Drone 3.0 Era
"2017 is the first year of industry drones." Pan Yifeng recalled that at that time, the consumer-grade drone track was the first to be fixed and formed, which heated up the entire drone industry; in addition, Beidou RTK technology is mature and combined with drones. The drone landing industry has become the focus of attention in the industry, and application scenarios such as power inspection have been rapidly expanded.
It was this year that Zhongke Cloud Tu officially entered the industry drone track with the research and development of drone autonomous driving software as the incision. Zhongke Cloud Tu quickly won a large number of orders, and the contract amount in the second year of its establishment jumped from 2.55 million yuan to nearly 20 million yuan, an increase of more than six times; operating income increased by nearly nine times.
Pan Yifeng believes that "opportunities" are the key to the rapid development of Zhongke Cloud Map. "We happened to seize the industry opportunity, and our products and services were in line with the market demand at that time."
In fact, the word "seize the initiative" has always been throughout the growth of Zhongke Cloud Tu. In Pan Yifeng's view, there are several key nodes in the overall development process of the enterprise. The first node of
arrived around 2019. In order to further meet market demand and realize fully automated drones, decided to shift from software research and development to drone network operation, and began to deploy drone base stations and other related hardware. Looking back on this transformation, Pan Yifeng said, "At that time, we were under a lot of pressure, took many detours, and paid a lot of 'tuition fees'." The biggest challenge of
comes from the limitations of the research direction of the startup team - most R&D personnel come from the field of geographic information software, and hardware manufacturing is a "blind spot in knowledge", and it is impossible to find a suitable OEM supplier on the market. This also led to the quality problems of Zhongke Cloud Tu's products in the early stages of transformation.
"We soon realized that the logic of making software is different, manufacturing requires a complete operation system and process control. Later, we also introduced a large number of talents from related fields, and the business gradually got on track." Pan Yifeng told Southern Finance All-Media reporters that drone base stations have become one of the main businesses of Zhongke Cloud Map. The second node of
is the epidemic in recent years. has been in the five-year growth process of Zhongke Cloud Tu for three years, with personnel flow restricted and many business advancements hindered. Against this background, Zhongke Cloud Map still maintains rapid growth, and still achieved operating income of nearly 60 million yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of nearly 50%.
Pan Yifeng said that this is due to the company's early planning.As early as the beginning of its establishment, Zhongke Cloud Tu began to deploy the national market and set up multiple offices. Although the company has only about 300 people, its branches cover more than 20 provinces across the country. The "multi-point layout, close-fits service" model has reduced the obstacles brought by the epidemic to business development and promotion to a certain extent.
With the advent of the UAV 3.0 era characterized by "cluster networking" and "intelligence", Zhongke Cloud Map will usher in a new period of strategic opportunity.
Pan Yifeng believes that from the "flying toys" in the era of model aircraft to the "flying cameras" in the era of aerial photography, the drone industry has gone through two eras. At present, drones are transitioning to "flying computers". "The third-generation industrial-grade drones are essentially different from the popular products on the market. They emphasize more on resource sharing. Each drone will be a network terminal that can realize multi-machine collaboration, self-organizing networks, and communication with each other." Pan Yifeng said.
In fact, Zhongke Cloud Tu is already preparing to go public, and the B round of financing will be mainly used to carry out the research and development of third-generation industrial-grade drone products.
In addition, in order to welcome the upcoming 3.0 era, Zhongke Cloud Map plans to increase the proportion of R&D investment to 20% in 2023, with a total of 40-50 million yuan in scientific research funds. The company is expected to achieve productization in 2023 with two years as its R&D cycle and achieve mass production targets in 2024.
focuses on samples of high-growth enterprises such as specialized, innovative, and hidden champions, and finds the code of industrial innovation in the Greater Bay Area, and sees the vitality of urban development in the Greater Bay Area. Southern Finance All Media Group's "2022 Bay Area 100 Large-scale All Media In-depth Research Reports" was released!
Commander-in-chief丨Deng Honghui
Academic consultant丨Tao Feng
Coordination丨Yu Xiaona, Du Hongyu
New media Coordination丨Ding Qingyun
Planning丨Li Zhen
Reporter丨Ding Li
Text editing丨Li Zhen
Guangzhou series joint research organization丨Guangdong Venture Capital Association
Produced by Southern Finance All-Media Group
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Editor of this issue Li Yutong Intern Lin Xiying
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