Code Brain | Smart Manufacturing Industry Study Tour: From Industry Benchmarks to Star Startups
For founders, "inward learning" and "outward learning" are equally important!
For entrepreneurs, learning from within and learning from outside are equally important!
In early April, Source Code Capital organized a "Suzhou Study Tour," bringing together CEOs and senior executives from 15 portfolio companies based in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and other cities. Over the course of one day, they visited four companies — including established industry leaders like ECOVACS and Tongcheng; hot-sector startups like Zelos, an autonomous driving company; and a MaHui member company, Magic Warehouse Robotics.
This was the first event in the 2024 "Code Brain Guest Visit Series," but hardly Source Code Capital's first rodeo. Starting in 2023, as the business environment grew more complex, we anticipated that portfolio companies would increasingly need industry-specific support — support that would deliver both near-term and long-term value. We began planning vertical industry exchange activities, taking portfolio companies, LPs, and SPs into leading enterprises for face-to-face conversations. The goal: to understand the latest industry developments and best practices from benchmark companies, and to explore potential business collaboration and ecosystem synergies.
Last year, we led nine smart manufacturing companies on a visit to Foxconn. Responding to digitization and intelligentization needs across various business lines, Source Code Capital's portfolio companies engaged in deep business discussions with Foxconn's leadership, and the two sides established broad ongoing ties. The feedback was excellent. This year's "Suzhou Study Tour" continues that smart manufacturing industry exchange series — smart manufacturing companies accounted for 60% of participating enterprises.
The first stop was ECOVACS, a representative Chinese service robotics company. From its origins as an OEM manufacturer, this veteran robotics enterprise has grown into an industry benchmark through a series of bold and strategically sound decisions. During the visit, Zhao Liang, Dean of ECOVACS Innovation Model Research Institute, used case studies to share in detail the company's successful experiences and approaches in "user insight" and "product globalization."
The second stop — Tongcheng Group — was the only internet company on this tour, and the definitive representative of Suzhou's homegrown internet sector. More importantly, it emerged during China's internet boom and has weathered multiple industry cycles. Over two hours, founder Wu Zhixiang shared Tongcheng's development journey with refreshing candor, along with his entrepreneurial mindset over more than two decades: the logic behind business decisions, what they got right, what they got wrong...
The third stop was Zelos, an autonomous driving company. Autonomous driving has drawn considerable attention domestically and internationally in recent years, and Zelos is a star startup in this space in China, with autonomous delivery vehicles already on the market and on the road. Shi Yunjian, General Manager of Zelos's Investment and Financing Center, outlined the evolution of autonomous driving technology at home and abroad, remaining technical challenges, product commercialization, and future application scenarios...
The final stop was Magic Warehouse Robotics, a MaHui member company and the only Source Code Capital portfolio company on this tour. Though founded just over a year ago, this warehouse logistics robotics company has garnered significant industry attention. Founder/CEO Cheng Changshun shared Magic Warehouse's technical and product advantages, deployment cases across multiple sectors, and potential collaboration opportunities.
