At the end of the year, the post-90s genius boy raised funds again.
Recently, Zhiyuan Robot has completed a new round of A3 round of financing, and the investors are still luxurious - Lanchi Venture Capital, Zhongke Chuangxing, CDH Investment, Changfei**, C Capital, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Lijing Innovation, Sanhua Holding Group, Cornerstone Capital, Lingang New Area** and Ginkgo Valley Capital.
Behind this company, there is one of the hottest post-90s generations - the founder was Huawei's "genius boy" and has 2.5 million fans of Station B UP - Zhihuijun Peng Zhihui.
Since its establishment in February this year, Zhiyuan Robot has won 5 rounds of financing non-stop, gathering Hillhouse, CDH, Jingwei, Gaorong, BYD, MiraclePlus and a number of local countries, which can be called one of the most popular projects of the year.
Quietly discovered,This year, post-90s highly educated founders have appeared intensively. "One or two good brains are worth thousands of troops".More and more science and engineering tyrants are leading this wave of technology entrepreneurship.
Leaving Huawei, a post-90s genius started a business
Phenomenal Project of the Year
Zhiyuan robot is inseparable from the former Huawei genius boy behind it - Zhihuijun.
Zhihuijun, formerly known as Peng Zhihui, was born in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province in 1993, and went to live in Guangdong because of his parents' work transfer in his early years. According to public information, there is not much description of his childhood: he was a child who didn't talk much, played with a Gameboy handheld computer with only 32 trillion memory, and liked to draw, play guitar, and play table tennis.
In 2015, Peng Zhihui graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and continued his postgraduate studies in the School of Information and Communication Engineering. During this period, Peng Zhihui showed strong hands-on ability, and became well-known through shooting: in 2017, he released 11 paragraphs at station B**, and robots "have appeared frequently in his ** since then, including self-balancing robots, bipedal robots, table tennis robots, etc. Since then, Peng Zhihui has become a well-known KOL in the technology circle.
After graduating from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2018, Peng Zhihui joined the AI laboratory of OPPO Research Institute as an algorithm engineer, where he worked for two years.
It was in 2020 that he really made a name for himself. That year, after seven rounds of interviews, Peng Zhihui successfully joined Huawei's "Genius Youth Program" and became an algorithm engineer in the Ascend department of Huawei's computing product lineThe main direction is the field of AI edge heterogeneous computing. With an annual salary of one million, he is in the limelight for a while.
During his time at Huawei, Peng Zhihui and other talented teenagers were praised by Ren Zhengfei as the driving force behind Huawei's innovation.
At the same time, as a well-known up master, Zhihuijun also has more and more fans at station B, known as "Wild Iron Man". Zhihuijun has released a lot of self-developed robots on station B, with millions of hits, such as 3 months of self-made smallest TV, and even used the leftover crab shell to create a Mars rover ...... that can be controlled wirelessly, target tracking, and laser rangingToday, Zhihuijun has more than 2.5 million followers on station B.
Peng Zhihui has had a robot dream since he was a child: "If the programmer is the god of the digital world, then give the robot a body with his own hands, and then use AI to endow it with a soul, this is the romance of a true geek!."So, in December 2022, Zhihuijun officially announced on social platforms that he would leave Huawei to pursue his dream and favorite career.
In February this year, Zhiyuan Robot set sail, and Peng Zhihui served as the chief innovation officer and chief technology officer of humanoid robots, responsible for the research and development of humanoid robot products. Fighting side by side with him is Yan Weixin, chief scientist of intelligent health care at the Shanghai Institute of Artificial Intelligence and professor at the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Just half a year after the company was established, in August this year, Zhiyuan Robotics released the first generation of general-purpose humanoid bipedal robot "Expedition A1". This humanoid robot with a height of 175cm and a weight of 53kg can walk on two feet and a high pace of 7km h.
It is reported that the second-generation humanoid robot of Zhiyuan Robot is also in the research and development stage and is expected to be launched in 2024.
It was established for one year and quickly raised five rounds of financing
Investors are packed
Since its establishment, Zhihuijun's financing has been booming.
In the latest round of financing, Zhiyuan Robot has gathered several industrial investorsLijing Innovation, Sanhua Holding Group, Changfei**。Among them, YOFC is a shareholding subsidiary of YOFC, a listed company, Sanhua Holding Group has set up an auto parts company, which is Tesla's first businessman, and Lijing Innovation is an affiliate of Luxshare Precision.
An obvious logic is that Zhiyuan Robot's robots can be applied in the field of industrial manufacturing, and industrial investors can help reduce the cost of robot production. In fact, at the press conference of Expedition A1, the Zhiyuan Robotics team revealed that the commercialization of Expedition A1 will first be applied to the field of industrial intelligent manufacturing, and they are in contact with automobile companies and 3C manufacturers.
Adrian ChengIt also appeared in the new round of financing of Zhiyuan Robot. As the eldest son of Cheng Kar-chun, the second-generation ** person of New World, Zheng Zhigang not only operates the well-known K11 shopping mall, but also leaves a deep impression on the venture capital circle with C Capital at the helm.
BYD has already made a move. In August this year, Zhiyuan New Venture underwent industrial and commercial changes, adding a number of shareholders such as BYD, Wofu Venture Capital, and Lanchi Venture Capital. This is BYD's first investment in the field of humanoid robots, since the expedition A1 of Zhiyuan Robot can be applied to the field of industrial manufacturing, it is natural to enter BYD's factory to "work", such as participating in the appearance inspection process, assembling chassis, etc., and working on the busy automobile assembly line.
BYDAnother reason for the sale may be that the layout of humanoid robots and their ** chain through investment is also an area that rival Tesla has set foot in. In addition, robots with "brains" will make their own decisions based on specific tasks, which is easily associated with autonomous driving, and the two may learn from each other.
Earlier, in May this year, Zhiyuan Robotics ushered in a group of new shareholders, including venture capital, Jingwei, CDH, Gao Rong, etc., among them, Robin Li's final beneficiary shares were 132%。In the early days of its establishment, Zhiyuan Robot attracted Hillhouse and MiraclePlus, in addition to a number of local state-owned assets, including Shanghai Lingang City Investment, Shanghai Sinan Park Branch Private Equity Management and so on.
Zhihuijun and Zhiyuan Robot are a microcosm. Zooming in, humanoid robots are becoming another track that VC PE pays attention to. With the upgrading of AI large model technology to the "brain" of robots, it can be said that investors who flocked to large models in the first half of the year no longer paid attention to humanoid robots.
Previously, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in his speech**: The next wave of artificial intelligence is embodied intelligence. "Embodied intelligence refers to an intelligent system or machine that is able to interact with the environment in real time through perception and interaction, and usually has the ability to perceive, cognitive, make decisions and act.
More generally, embodied intelligence refers to agents that have bodies and support physical interactions, such as intelligent robots and self-driving cars. There is no doubt that humanoid robots are excellent carriers of embodied intelligence.
The most representative is Tesla. At the 2023 shareholders' meeting, Musk's demand for robots will reach 10 billion in the future, and the demand for humanoid robots will even far exceed that of cars. He even said that "robots supported by general-purpose AI algorithms are where Tesla's long-term value lies in the future." At present, Tesla Optimus Prime has produced 5-6 humanoid robots and expects to conduct practical tests in its own factory next year.
As a result, a series of financings appeared. We have seen that more and more humanoid robot startups such as MindMinds Robot, Dreame Technology, Unitree Technology, Fourier Intelligence, Xiaopeng Pengxing, Lesen Robot, and Xingdong Era have been favored by VC PE. Behind this, the vast majority of investors firmly believe that the scene of science fiction movies will one day become a reality.
The rise of the post-90s
This year, Xueba stirred up the venture capital circle
Looking at it, there are a number of young and highly educated faces in the venture capital circle this year.
The most sensational is AA post-95 female student in the i circle - Guo Wenjing。Not long ago, an automatic generation ** software pika that swept the AI circle in Silicon Valley became popular, and the first product it released was able to automatically generate and edit 3D animations, animations, ** and movies according to text, causing screen swiping.
Pika was created by a team of only 4 full-time members. The founder, Guo Wenjing, was the first genius girl in Zhejiang to be admitted to Harvard. After entering Harvard, she studied while studying at Meta AI Research, Microsoft, Google Brain, Epic Games and other companies and teams, obtained a master's degree in computer science and an undergraduate degree in mathematics, and then went to Stanford University to study for a doctorate. In April this year, Guo Wenjing and his classmate Chenlin Meng dropped out of Stanford together to jointly develop AI tools, which led to the birth of Pika and completed three consecutive rounds of financing within 6 months.
Highly educated groups are setting off a wave of technology entrepreneurship. In the field of large models that are hot this year, a number of star startups have emerged, such as the dark side of the moon founded by Yang Zhilin of Tsinghua University in the post-90s
Yang's scholarly attributes manifested themselves in high school, when he was selected for the Olympiad training class and eventually escorted to Tsinghua University to study with Professor Tang Jie, one of China's most well-known AI researchers. During his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University, Yang studied under Ruslan Salakhutdinov, head of AI research at Apple, and William Cohen, chief scientist at Google, and completed a Ph.D. program in four years, which usually takes six years to complete.
In April this year, Yang Zhilin joined two co-creators who were also from Tsinghua University, Zhou Xinyu and Wu Yuxin, to found the dark side of the moon together. At present, the dark side of the moon has received nearly 2 billion yuan of investment from well-known institutions such as Sequoia China, Today Capital, and Lisi Capital.
At the same time, Tsinghua University's post-90s Yao Song helmed the infinite **see fund, which has also made frequent moves this year, investing in Galaxy General Robot, Hangyi Technology UAV, AI company Halo Intelligence, etc., focusing on hard-core technology.
Also impressed by the post-90s boys of Peking University - Sun Weijie and Zhang LinfengIn August this year, they co-founded Shenshi Technology announced the completion of a new round of financing of more than 700 million yuan, including Zhongyuan Capital, Heyu Capital, Zhengxin Valley Capital, Evergreen Scitech Delta, etc., as well as a number of industrial capitals. In the summer of 2018, the two agreed that there was a huge market application prospect in the field of AI for Science, so they hit it off, and Shenshi Technology was born.
The latest case is a post-90s generation from Tongji。At the beginning of the month, Tongyu Automobile announced the completion of more than 500 million yuan B round of strategic financing, investors include Xiaomi Group, Lepu Capital, CCB Capital, Wu Yuefeng Capital, GGV Capital, Shenzhen Venture Capital, Mingchuan Capital, Xuanyuan Capital, Huoyan Capital, BOCOM International Holdings, Xinghang Capital, Yizhou Capital, Jinbang Capital, Dongfeng Asset Management, BAIC Industrial Investment, Shenzhen Ruomu Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), Gongqingcheng Tongchi Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), Guoshun**, Anhui State Holding Group, CCB Investment. Shu Qiang, the founder of the post-90s, graduated from the famous Tongji University Automobile College.
Unlike in the past, the current wave of entrepreneurs are all from prestigious universities, with the halo of academic excellence and science and engineering, and use the latest technology to write footnotes for the world. If the last wave of entrepreneurs in China was good at running business and doing sales, then the group of young founders in front of them are more focused on technology, which is also a portrayal of the "technocratic" entrepreneurial era.
The back waves of the Yangtze River push the front waves, this is an eternal law, and the world will always belong to young people.
Recent hot news:
A bowl of 30 yuan, the Internet celebrity noodle restaurant can't sell the richest family in Shandong, and 24 billion assets are delisted.
Star Wall Street news, good content is not missed
This article does not constitute personal investment advice, does not represent the views of the platform, the market is risky, investment needs to be cautious, please make independent judgment and decision-making.
If you think it looks good, please click "Looking".