Tencent is getting harder and harder.
Investment community learned that Yunjing Intelligent Technology (Dongguan) Co., Ltd. has recently undergone industrial and commercial changes, adding shareholders Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd. . This startup company located in Songshan Lake has become a robot unicorn, and behind it is well-known investors such as Sequoia China, Source Code Capital , Hillhouse Venture Capital, ByteDance, etc.
was founded in 2016. The founder of Yunjing Intelligence is a boy born in the 1990s - Zhang Junbin. After leaving campus, Zhang Junbin submitted his resume to Professor Li Zexiang, and went south to Songshan Lake, Dongguan, and started the road to robot entrepreneurship. He and his team spent three years polishing the product and finally became famous with a floor mopping robot.
This is Tencent’s latest move in the hard technology track. Since the shrinking of Internet strategic investment, Internet manufacturers have begun to invest their funds and resources in hard technology fields that meet the urgent needs of the country. Tencent has invested in domestic DRAM manufacturers Changxin Storage , DPU unicorn Cloud Leopard Intelligent , Chip newcomer Guangzhou Semiconductor , photovoltaic project GCL photoelectric , battery unicorn Juwan Technology Research , quantum computing company IQM, etc. The wheel of history is rolling forward, and the former Internet era is being completely replaced by hard technology.
Shanghai Jiaotong University 90s master's degree, Li Zexiang's love disciple
He made a sweeping robot
This is the entrepreneurial story of a boy born in the 1990s.
1990, Zhang Junbin was born in a Chaoshan family. He has had a strong interest in robots since childhood. He won the gold medal in the International Youth Olympic Robot Competition in 2006. In 2012, Zhang Junbin graduated from the School of Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation at the School of Mechanical Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and won the title of "Outstanding Undergraduate Graduate". Later, he went to Shanghai Jiaotong University to study for a postgraduate degree. During his study, Zhang Junbin participated in robot-related scientific research activities and competitions many times, and determined robots as his future goal.
At this time, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Professor Li Zexiang and a group of outstanding entrepreneurial mentors jointly initiated the XbotPark Songshan Lake Robot Base. Zhang Junbin submitted his resume to Professor Li Zexiang's official account with a try-out mentality, intending to start a business in Songshan Lake, Dongguan. In 2016, Zhang Junbin founded the robot company Yunjing Intelligent in Building 17, No. 1, Songshan Lake headquarters, and became the first project talents to introduce Dongguan Songshan Lake Robot Base.
At first, Zhang Junbin and his team members had not found a clear product direction. They had tried to do robots, blind navigation devices and other projects to pick up golf balls, but they all had to give up due to technical restrictions and high market risks. By chance, Zhang Junbin's father said at a family gathering: "It's too tiring to bend over the floor when mopping, why don't you be a mopping robot that can wash mop cloths?" This sentence inspired Zhang Junbin, who was struggling to find the direction.
Then, Zhang Junbin led the team to conduct detailed market research and user research. After research, Zhang Junbin found that most of the home cleaning robots on the market only solved the problem of "sweeping" but not the problem of "dragging". So, he and his team decided to make a sweeping and mopping robot that can automatically wash mopping.
For a long time since then, Zhang Junbin and his team members stayed in a small office to tinker with the machine. Zhang Junbin once admitted that he had a serious "product cleanliness obsession". Once, he found that a circular mop would create a gap when mopping the floor, so he pushed the design back and changed it to a triangle mop, which directly delayed the product's launch time by three months. In this way, Zhang Junbin led the team to study more than 30 product solutions, and it took three years to launch the first product - the sweeping robot Xiao Bai Whale, which comes with its own cleaning mop.
Hard work pays off. In 2019, Yunjing Intelligent's first product exceeded 10 million yuan on the day of Double Eleven sales. Two years later, the second-generation product went on sale on the first day of Double 11 that year, with sales exceeding 100 million yuan in one minute and sales exceeding 200 million yuan in seven minutes. Data shows that in the first half of 2022, Yunjing ranked among the top three in the online sales of China's sweeping robots with a market share of 15.1%.
Reviewing the entrepreneurial journey, Zhang Junbin once expressed his feelings: "On the road of entrepreneurship, I live a very fulfilling life every day, and this feeling is something that ordinary jobs cannot bring to me. If I give me another chance to choose, I will still choose to start a business without hesitation. In this way, I can completely control the career and pursue something I love and interesting."
Songshan Lake ran out of a unicorn
In addition to Tencent Bytes, there are also a number of well-known VC/PE
Today, Yunjing Intelligence has become a phenomenon-level company in the field of robots, but early financing has experienced a difficult time.
When Yunjing Intelligent made its first round of financing, external investment institutions did not know much about Songshan Lake's project. "No one would have thought there were projects worth investing in this corner. If you find thirty or fifty potential capital, you may be able to connect with one of them successfully." Professor Li Zexiang once recalled. Later, Li Zexiang and several teachers gritted their teeth and paid for Yunjing Intelligent Angel Wheel.
data shows that Yunjing Intelligent received an angel round financing from Qingshui Bay Fund in 2016. Qingshuiwan Fund (the predecessor of XBOT PARK Fund) is a venture capital fund jointly established by Professors Li Zexiang, Gao Bingqiang, Gan Jie, and Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital.
As the first external investor of Yunjing Intelligence, Mingshi Capital also investigated Yunjing Intelligence and Zhang Junbin for a while before taking action. As early as 2015, Huang Mingming, founding partner of Mingshi Capital, met Zhang Junbin, who had not yet officially started a business in Songshan Lake, Dongguan, and left a deep impression. "This young man has a deep belief in technology and is extremely obsessed with products."
Moreover, Zhang Junbin can keenly detect the pain points of the current sweeping robots and start to develop mopping robots that are more in line with the needs of Chinese people. "Although Zhang Junbin has never started a business, he has an insight into the market that is beyond ordinary people, which is very valuable." Based on this, Mingshi Capital decided to invest in Yunjing Intelligent, which had only one model at that time. In 2017, Yunjing Intelligent completed a Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, and the investors were Mingshi Capital and Qingshui Bay Fund (the predecessor of XBOT PARK Fund).
In the next two years, Zhang Junbin and his team focused on doing research, and Yunjing Intelligent did not have much financing actions. It was not until April 2019 that Yunjing Intelligent completed its A round of financing, with investors including Qingshuiwan Capital, Yingfeng Capital , and Rice Venture Capital. On Double Eleven of the same year, Yunjing Intelligent's first sweeping and mopping integrated robot, Xiaobei Whale, achieved sales of more than 10 million yuan on the day of its launch, and began to attract the attention of a number of investment institutions.
At that time, Chang Kais, a partner of source code capital, saw Yunjing Intelligent's products on social platforms and was attracted by the mopping function of automatically cleaning mop. Shortly after Double 11 in 2019, Chang Kaiss flew to Songshan Lake, Dongguan to inspect Yunjing Intelligent on the spot. During the first talks, Zhang Junbin and his team looked tired because they were preparing for Double Eleven, but they were very excited when talking about the future of the industry and the technical route. Zhang Junbin is very clear about the important position of the supply chain and has already built his own production line for Yunjing Intelligent.
Not long after, source code capital quickly promoted subsequent investment work. In April 2020, Yunjing Intelligent completed a B round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan, led by Source Code Capital and ByteDance, followed by old shareholders Yingfeng Capital and Rice Venture Capital. In less than two months, the company announced the completion of its Series C financing again. Leading the investment by Sequoia China, followed by Source Code Capital, Hillhouse Venture Capital and ByteDance. On Double Eleven in 2020, Yunjing sweeping robot sales exceeded 200 million, and its valuation soared by 15 times, becoming an unicorn that came out of Songshan Lake.Until 2021, Yunjing Intelligent completed its D and E rounds of financing, and the specific investors have not disclosed it yet. Currently, the valuation of exceeds 10 billion .
Since the beginning of this year, the primary market has cooled rapidly, VC/PE has collectively slowed down its pace of action, and the popular robot track last year also experienced financing difficulties. Against this background, Yunjing Intelligent still obtained investment from Tencent. At this point, a luxurious team of investors has gathered behind Yunjing Intelligent.
intensively sells chips, robots, new energy
Tencent, and this year it is getting harder and harder
Yunjing Intelligent, which is just a wonderful footnote for Tencent to bet on the hard technology track.
Looking back at 2021, if everyone in the VC circle invests in hard technology, technology innovation has become a social consensus. Internet giants no longer focus on model innovation and have begun to collectively utilize their own financial advantages to help "bottleneck" hard technology fields. It can be seen that Tencent has gradually regained its investment tentacles in the Internet field and has begun to be active in the hard technology battlefield.
is not like the Internet, the growth cycle of hard technology is longer, and investment risk is extremely high, requiring huge amount of capital investment. More importantly, hard technology companies are unlikely to have a "only winner" like the Internet. Since the beginning of this year, Tencent has invested heavily in hard-core tracks such as chips, robots, new energy , which were rare in the past.
In May this year, Tencent went to Kunshan to invest in a photovoltaic project - Gxin Optoelectronics . The three founders of Xinxing Optoelectronics, Fan Bin, Tian Qingyong and Bai Hua, all come from the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University. Among them, Fan Bin, founder and chairman of Xinxin Optoelectronics, , Tsinghua , undergraduate graduation design is about third-generation photovoltaic technology. Later, Fan Bin went to the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland to study for his Ph.D. and studied under Michael Gratzel, the inventor of the perovskite structural battery of the school. After graduating from
, Fan Bin returned to Xiamen and found Tsinghua classmates Tian Qingyong and Bai Hua to establish Weihua Optoelectronics, the predecessor of Xinxin Optoelectronics, specializing in perovskite technology. However, due to the advancement of perovskite technology, the company often falls into a dilemma of operational difficulties. It was not until 2016 that GCL Group acquired a stake in , and the team set out again to establish GCL Optoelectronics. Nowadays, the market is gradually recognizing perovskite technology, and more investors are taking the initiative to find GCL Optoelectronics. It is understood that GCL Optoelectronics' round B financing is very popular. Many investment institutions are willing to squeeze out the market in order to gain share, and eventually were taken the lead by Tencent. Since then, venture capital circle has begun to compete for perovskite startup projects.
Also in the field of new energy, Tencent also invested in a battery unicorn - Juwan Technology Research. Founded in September 2020, Juwan Technology Research is the first internal incubation technology innovation company of GAC Group , and is jointly funded by GAC Group, GAC Capital, GAC Research Institute pilot technology team and third-party strategic partner holding platform. The company focuses on the research and development and production of super fast charging power battery and a new generation of breakthrough energy storage devices and their systems. The XFC (eXtreme Fast Charge) ultra-fast battery of Juwan Technology Research is now equipped with GAC Aion models. In April this year, Juwan Technology Research completed a Series A financing participated by Tencent, with a valuation of RMB 8 billion.
. In the highly anticipated chip track, Tencent’s investment actions are not too much. In addition to the AI chip company Suiyuan Technology, Tencent is also the major shareholder of Yunbao Intelligent, the DPU unicorn company. The company was founded in 2020. Founder Xiao Qiyang was once an associate professor at the MIT lecturer and is a big technician. At present, behind Yunbao Intelligence, a number of well-known institutions such as Sequoia China, Shenzhen Venture Capital , Wuyuan Capital, NIO Capital, Zhengxin Valley Capital, and SMIC Juyuan have appeared. According to industry insiders, Yunbao Intelligent is one of the most financing startups in the domestic DPU industry, and its latest valuation is already at the unicorn level.
Not long ago, Tencent invested in Guangzhou Semiconductor, a chip company. In early August, Guangzhou Semiconductor, a provider of optical waveguide system, underwent industrial and commercial changes, and its new shareholder Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd.According to the official website, Guangzhou Semiconductor was founded in January 2020 and was co-founded by AR optical expert Zhu Yisheng and industry scientists. It is committed to the development and manufacturing of high-end advanced technologies such as optical waveguides, optical engines, optical modules, micro-nano semiconductor materials and processes.
Guangzhou Semiconductor, which has just been established for two years, has completed multiple rounds of financing. In the year of its establishment, Guangzhou Semiconductor received the first round of financing from Zhongke Chuangxing, Sequoia China Seed Fund and Jinghua Optoelectronics; in 2021, Guangzhou Semiconductor completed two rounds of financing, including Shenzhen Hi-Tech Investment , Huaize Zhongzhao Angel Fund, Times Bole, Greater Bay Area Common Home Development Fund, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment Venture Capital Fund, Qianhai Mother Fund, ByteDance Strategic Investment Department, and Century Huatong , etc.
Not only that, Tencent also invested in the domestic DRAM manufacturer Changxin Storage this year, Stone Technology founder Changjing car manufacturing project Luoke Auto, nuclear fusion company First Light Fusion, intelligent driving platform software developer Zenin Technology, vaccine developer Yuanyin Bio, data service company Data Pipeline, robot process automation service provider Yingdao RPA, quantum computing company IQM, etc. According to PEDATA MAX data, a subsidiary of Qingke Entrepreneurship, as of August this year, Tencent has invested in more than 30 companies, of which more than half of the projects in the hard technology direction have changed significantly.
from soft to hard, Tencent's investment style has changed visually. The most sensational rumor this week is undoubtedly that Reuters quoted four people familiar with the matter as saying that Tencent plans to sell all or most of its holdings of Meituan US$224 billion stake in . However, Tencent's chief strategy officer James Mitchell said at the performance meeting on Wednesday night that the report on Tencent's plan to reduce its holdings in Meituan is "inaccurate".
But there are still many investors speculating: "Does Tencent want to do something tough and big?" A technology investor in Beijing who did not want to be named analyzed that Tencent also needs to explore new growth opportunities when it encounters certain bottlenecks in its main business games, social networking and cloud services. From a long-term development perspective, Tencent's investment in cutting-edge technology fields such as hard technology and chips is more valuable. In the conference call released by the second quarter report, Tencent executives admitted: "Tencent's stock price is currently undervalued, and our investment portfolio is also undervalued."
This may indicate that the venture capital circle is turning a new page. Farewell to the Internet era, Internet giants led by Tencent have begun to devote themselves to the torrent of China's hard technology era.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-