The Birth of a Retail Unicorn, Winning the Championship, and Finding the "Nail"... 12 Advances and 3 Insights | FreeS Fund Blackboard · October
Continuing to Push on Consumer and Deep Tech
FreeS Fund Newsletter — October Edition. We want to share our latest updates with friends who have long followed and supported us:
- Huasheng Haoche closed a $210 million Series B round, with FreeS Fund continuing to participate.
- FreeS Fund hosted "FreeS Talks," an offline sharing session for portfolio company CEOs.
We also have good news from the FreeS family:
- Deep Tech: NextVPU closed a RMB 200 million Series A round and released its first self-developed N171 AI vision chip; XtalPi raised $46 million in a Series B+ round; Bluepha's team won the world championship at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition; DeepCare received R&D funding support from the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone for tech-focused small and micro enterprises, and ranked in the global top 0.5% at the Kaggle Salt Identification Challenge; Moka celebrated its third anniversary, using AI to empower HR work; Huawei released a smart speaker powered by SoundAI technology
- Consumer: Huasheng Haoche surpassed 400 directly operated stores
- Awards: Yifei Automation made the EO "New Force in Intelligent Manufacturing Top 30" list; the "2018 China Makers Top 50" were announced, with Onion Math selected; the "2018 China Environmental Protection Future Unicorns Top 20" were released, with Meimiao Environmental Protection selected
As a young fund, FreeS Fund will continue to stay grounded and forge ahead, while diligently exploring the unknown — always looking forward to encountering innovation and the extraordinary.
FreeS Fund News
1
Huasheng Haoche Closes $210 Million Series B Round, FreeS Fund Continues to Participate
On October 24, automotive new retail platform Huasheng Haoche announced the completion of a $210 million Series B round. FreeS Fund, an angel-round investor, continued to participate in this round. Following this financing, Huasheng Haoche joins the ranks of well-capitalized new retail unicorns.
According to founder Ma Xiaojun, the funds will focus on three areas: first, further expanding its directly operated store network to solidify its channel moat; second, optimizing operational efficiency to improve transaction and service efficiency; third, exploring and incubating new businesses to complete a full industrial chain derivative layout and enhance the one-stop service experience. (See report: [Lieyunwang] Huasheng Haoche completes $210 million Series B round, led by Crescent Point with Goldman Sachs participation)
2
FreeS Fund Hosts "FreeS Talks," an Offline Sharing Session for Portfolio CEOs
"FreeS Talks" is a small-scale offline gathering for CEOs in the FreeS family. We invite experts who understand the topics and portfolio CEOs with hands-on experience to share knowledge and insights on subjects our CEOs care about.
On the morning of October 27 in Shenzhen, we invited FreeS Fund founding partner Li Feng to discuss with our CEOs: in the uncertain year of 2018, what are our current macro opportunities and challenges, and what opportunities and confidence do we see for the next 3-5 years.
FreeS Perspectives
▍Li Feng, FreeS Fund: Direct Capital Toward Where Economic Restructuring Needs It
Broadly speaking, finance is always in service of the economy — it's the faucet for economic restructuring and cyclical shifts. Equity investment is fundamentally a financial business model, so it should follow economic principles and direct capital toward the directions and structures that economic restructuring requires. For example, China's manufacturing chain is very long. For manufacturing to develop sustainably, we must secure the critical "nails" along that long chain and solve problems like core technology localization. (See report: [CS.com.cn] Equity investment survival of the fittest, innovation drives demonstration effect)
▍Rui Ma, FreeS Fund: The Key to Waste Sorting Is Lowering Costs and Raising Recovery Volume
We believe waste sorting and recycling, done well, has enormous commercial and social value — that's why we decided to invest in this space. The key is to lower costs and raise recovery volume.
The biggest problem with pure internet companies entering scrap recycling is that they don't understand the existing chain. They come in, break down the chain, put the collectors online, put the customers online, connect them, and think they've improved efficiency enough to beat traditional industry. What they miss is that the part of the waste recycling chain most in need of optimization isn't there — it's costs: logistics costs, labor costs, and equipment costs. (See report: [Aobei Environmental] Why I invested in "Aobei Environmental")
FreeS Family Updates
1
Deep Tech | AI Chip and Systems Company NextVPU Closes RMB 200 Million Series A Round
Recently, AI chip and systems company NextVPU announced the completion of a RMB 200 million Series A round. The funds will primarily accelerate R&D of technology products, strengthen team building, and advance corporate strategic development. NextVPU received angel-round investment from FreeS Fund in 2016.
As a world-class VPU, NextVPU's self-developed N171 elevates visual processing capability to new heights, providing processing environments and computing speeds far exceeding current industry visual chips for tens of millions of cameras, spanning security monitoring, intelligent robotics, autonomous driving, drones, and other professional fields. (See report: [Cyzone] AI chip and systems company NextVPU completes RMB 200 million Series A round, releases first self-developed N171 AI vision chip)
2
Deep Tech | AI Drug Discovery Company XtalPi Raises $46 Million Series B+ Investment
XtalPi announced on October 24 U.S. time the completion of a $46 million (approximately RMB 320 million) Series B+ round. This round will accelerate XtalPi's business expansion and the construction of its intelligent drug discovery platform, helping its technology find applications in more drug discovery areas.
XtalPi has now raised over $66 million in total, becoming one of the highest-funded companies globally in AI-driven drug discovery. XtalPi previously received Series A investment from FreeS Fund. (See report: [Arterial Network] AI drug discovery company XtalPi receives $46 million Series B+ investment, new funds to accelerate R&D and market development)
3
Consumer | Huasheng Haoche Surpasses 400 Directly Operated Stores
On October 20, at the Kunbai Daxin Metropolitan Mall in Chenggong District, Kunming, Yunnan Province, Huasheng Haoche — a leading domestic automotive new retail company — celebrated the grand opening of its 400th directly operated store. "This marks Huasheng Haoche becoming the largest automotive new retail direct-chain brand in China, and means the directly operated channel network moat we've built has been further solidified," said co-founder Chen Pengyun at the event. (See report: [Auto Review] Huasheng Haoche surpasses 400 directly operated stores, first one-stop after-sales service center debuts)
4
Deep Tech | Bluepha Team Wins World Championship at International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition
On October 29 U.S. Eastern Time, the 2018 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) concluded at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Bluepha's team, GreatBay_China, won the world championship (The Only Grand Prize). iGEM is the most prestigious academic competition in synthetic biology, with extremely broad influence in biotechnology worldwide. The competition has incubated over 30 biotech startups, one of which has become a unicorn, and more than 80% of talent in synthetic biology research and industry have directly or indirectly participated in iGEM.
The 2018 iGEM competition brought together nearly 350 teams from over 70 countries and regions worldwide, with participants from more than 400 top global research institutions including Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Cambridge. Judges were composed of top scholars, technology leaders, and corporate executives in biotechnology. This championship by Bluepha's team marks the first time a Chinese team has won in nearly 10 years. The previous Chinese team victory was in 2007.
Additionally, Bluepha was recently selected for the 2018 Beijing Outstanding Entrepreneurship Projects list, a selection process organized by the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau with only 20 slots citywide.
5
Deep Tech | DeepCare Receives R&D Funding Support from Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone for Tech-Focused Small and Micro Enterprises
Recently, the Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone announced the "2018 Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone Tech-Focused Small and Micro Enterprise R&D Funding Support List." Beijing DeepCare Information Technology Co., Ltd. successfully passed review and re-review by the Zhongguancun Administrative Committee, making the list and receiving R&D funding support! (See report: [DeepCare] DeepCare receives R&D funding support from Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone for tech-focused small and micro enterprises)
Meanwhile, at the recently concluded Kaggle Salt Identification Global Challenge, DeepCare's "Less is More" team achieved outstanding results in image segmentation technology, ranking in the global top 0.5% (17th out of 3,291) and 4th domestically. Competition participants came from leading universities, research institutes, and technology companies including National University of Singapore, Columbia University, University of Alberta, University of Bonn, Peking University, Nankai University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Sberbank AI Lab, NVIDIA, Trip.com Group, Meituan, and Flush. (See report: [DeepCare] Kaggle Salt Identification Challenge, DeepCare ranks in global top 0.5%)
6
Deep Tech | Moka Celebrates Third Anniversary, Using AI to Empower HR Work
On October 19, marking its third anniversary, Moka officially launched a new product feature: "AI Job-Candidate Matching," addressing the inefficiency of job-candidate matching in enterprise recruiting — a further exploration by Moka in the AI field.
Moka founder and CEO Zhao Oulun said this feature inverts the traditional HR model of actively searching for "who is suitable." Through models trained on extensive recruiting data, Moka can directly tell HR which resume best matches a position, delivering a better work experience and freeing them from mechanical, tedious recruiting tasks. (See report: [Moka Recruiting Management System] Moka launches "AI Job-Candidate Matching" on third anniversary, using AI to empower HR work)
7
Deep Tech | Huawei Releases Smart Speaker with SoundAI Technology
On October 26, 2018, at the Huawei Mate 20 series domestic launch event in Shanghai, Huawei officially released its smart speaker. The speaker features SoundAI's latest far-field voice intelligent interaction engine, a six-microphone ring array hardware-software integrated solution supporting far-field real-time calling and voiceprint recognition.
The Huawei smart speaker employs SoundAI's new far-field voiceprint recognition technology, breaking free from distance limitations on voiceprint recognition to identify different users based on far-field voice. It supports recognition of 8 "masters'" far-field voiceprints to unlock the speaker. This not only aligns with natural voice interaction habits and ensures user security and privacy, but also enables content settings and service recommendations based on different user preferences, achieving more flexible "thousands of faces for thousands of people" personalized experiences. (See report: [SoundAI] SoundAI far-field voiceprint and calling technology helps Huawei smart speaker stand out)
8
FreeS Family Award News
▍Yifei Automation Selected for EO "New Force in Intelligent Manufacturing Top 30" List
On October 19, 2018, at the "2018 BATi Intelligent Manufacturing · Smart Products Forum" hosted by EO and co-hosted by SIBEI, EO released the "2018 China New Force in Intelligent Manufacturing Top 30 Enterprises" list, with Yifei Automation making the cut. (See report: [EO.com] EO releases "New Force in Intelligent Manufacturing Top 30" list, new manufacturing channel to launch next year)
▍"2018 China Makers Top 50" Announced, Onion Math Selected
In the fourth season of the China Makers competition, nearly 3,400 startups applied. Based on dimensions including innovation, application scenarios, contribution, and operational capability, China Makers selected nearly 200 quality projects for on-site competition. On October 15, the 2018 China Makers Top 50 were announced, with Onion Math selected. (See report: [China Makers] 2018 China Makers Top 50 announced)
▍"2018 China Environmental Protection Future Unicorns Top 20" Released, Meimiao Environmental Protection Selected
In 2018, environmental protection policies were implemented intensively, environmental protection momentum accelerated, and industry innovation entered a golden period, with environmental protection becoming a new concentration area for unicorns and quasi-unicorns.
Based on this, Chuangye Heima partnered with the Jiangsu (Yixing) Environmental Protection Industry Technology Research Institute, together with numerous investment institutions, research think tanks, and industry media, to invite frontline entrepreneurs and investors in China's environmental protection field to conduct the "2018 China Environmental Protection Unicorns Top 20" list selection from professional and industry insight perspectives, with Meimiao Environmental Protection selected. (See report: [iHeima] Seeking an "environmental beast" — 2018 China Environmental Protection Future Unicorns Top 20 selection launched)
9
FreeS Family Perspectives
▍NextVPU's Feng Xinpeng: The Chip Industry Is at a Particularly Interesting Moment
AI vision processors represent an emerging market important to both giants and startups alike. We believe the vision processor market will eventually exceed the CPU market in size.
The current moment is interesting: market demand has emerged, but chips processing AI vision needs are slow and painful to develop, and expensive. The market remains relatively blue ocean. Giants like Intel and NVIDIA are moving forward, but their progress is relatively slow because emerging markets are still small — large companies tend to serve large markets and big customers, and emerging markets can't sustain their entire projects. Historically, small companies have the advantage at nodes of technological transformation like this. (See report: [Leiphone] Former AMD chip R&D director starts up, develops AI vision chip surpassing Intel/NVIDIA in two years)
▲ Fund II's first close, new launches, awards... 13 gains and 4 insights | FreeS Newsletter · September
▲ Top5/15/50/100, expanding to India, partnering with Tencent on in-car systems... 13 gains and 8 insights | FreeS Newsletter · August
▲ Crayfish going overseas, chip launches, talking about Douyin... 7 developments and 3 thoughts in World Cup season | FreeS Newsletter · July
▲ Crayfish going overseas, chip launches, talking about Douyin... 7 developments and 3 thoughts in World Cup season | FreeS Newsletter · June
▲ 11 advances in early summer: grown-up us still believe "creating is endlessly fun" | FreeS Newsletter · May
9 gains and 4 insights in springtime | FreeS Newsletter · March
