Ma Hui | Synced Closes Pre-A Round Led by Toutiao, with Source Code Capital as Follow-On Investor

Synced has closed its Pre-A funding round, led by Toutiao with participation from Source Code Capital, Xunchan Tou, and 5Y Capital. Going forward, Synced will work closely with these four strategic investors, along with its previous angel investor Legend Star Comet Labs, to deepen collaboration across global AI content, investment, industry services, project incubation, and technology research. Specific partnership details will be announced in phases.

Synced is the first Chinese tech media outlet to systematically cover artificial intelligence. Over the past three years, it has maintained rigorous editorial values and principles, consistently delivering high-quality content that enables AI practitioners and enthusiasts to access genuinely valuable information and knowledge. Synced aims to use the power of quality content to properly guide and even influence the development of the AI industry, rather than deliberately hyping AI concepts or producing irresponsible content.

Precisely because of this approach, Synced has earned strong recognition from numerous technical experts, tech company executives, and AI practitioners both in China and abroad. It has built broad influence and visibility, developing a distinctive brand identity.

Synced has conducted in-depth interviews with AI experts including Li Deng, Andrew Ng, Richard Sutton, Yang Qiang, Xuedong Huang, the MXNet team, Greg Corrado, Lawrence Carin, Jack Gallant, Randy Schekman, Hsiao-Wuen Hon, Yongdong Wang, Dong Yu, Qingfeng Liu, Yu Hu, Yuanqing Lin, Wenyuan Dai, Jian Sun, and Lei Li. It has also provided on-site coverage of NIPS 2016 and CDLM 2016. Its honors include the "Microsoft (China) Co., Ltd. 2016 Media Award," Toutiao's 2016 "Tech Account of the Year," Huxiu's 2015 "Top Ten Authors," and Toutiao's 2015 "Best Self-Media." It partnered with O'Reilly as a co-media partner for AI Frontiers, and was the only Chinese media outlet invited to the prestigious neuroscience conference Brain Forum 2016. Synced is also a strategic partner of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence's "Wen Jun AI Science and Technology Award."

Currently, Synced has approximately 500,000 high-quality users across all platforms, with 50,000 daily page views on WeChat and 60,000 active users.

On the events front, Synced has organized the "North America Seven-City AI Series," the "CVPR 2016 Chinese Scholars Gathering," and other events covering nearly a thousand outstanding overseas AI talents. Domestically, it has built the premium offline AI event series "Interface," and co-organized events including the "BOT Data Application Competition" and the "China AI Industry Conference and Wen Jun Award Ceremony."

Beyond its media business, Synced has long been deeply engaged in AI industry services, providing various participants with investment and financing matchmaking, upstream and downstream demand matching, talent recruitment, and international cooperation services, accumulating multiple successful cases. It has also completed preparations for an incubator, fund, and open data platform.

Synced now has a comprehensive and professional international team, with channels and networks covering all core global AI regions and Chinese technical talent. It has established close partnerships with hundreds of tech giants, labs, research institutions, incubators, and startups worldwide, enabling continuous access to quality content, entrepreneurial projects, talent, and collaboration opportunities.

Synced is keenly aware of its positioning and mission, and remains committed to its principles, taste, and values. Its media business will continue producing more high-quality content, launching new content products including video and industry reports, always striving toward the standards of exemplars like The Economist, Bloomberg, and The New Yorker, with the goal of becoming a truly international serious tech media outlet. On the industry side, Synced will remain positioned as a "service provider," using its solid accumulated experience and concrete, grounded business operations to serve various AI participants with prudence and humility, helping them solve practical problems, rather than attempting (or pretending) to become some so-called "AI platform" or "AI ecosystem."

Lead investor Toutiao stated that it has long been committed to large-scale application of AI technology, using user interest to personalize content recommendations, constantly seeking to optimize and improve information distribution efficiency. "We believe AI will more profoundly impact all industries in the future, bringing greater convenience to people's lives. As an important industry media outlet in the AI sector, Synced has created and produced a large volume of quality AI content, playing a vital connecting role across industry, academia, and society. Going forward, we hope Toutiao can work hand-in-hand with Synced through deep cooperation to more broadly promote information exchange, resource sharing, capital flow, and talent collaboration in the AI field, further advancing the overall better development of the AI industry."

Source Code Capital has been making investment deployments across multiple domains where AI integrates with practical applications. Specifically: in information, Toutiao uses AI for information distribution; in finance, Qudian and Yongqianbao use AI for personal credit; in healthcare, robotic doctors assist in diagnosis. Regarding this investment, Source Code Capital believes that "Intelligence+" is continuously transforming society, and in the long term, technology will penetrate all aspects of human life and production, an unstoppable trend. It believes Synced's professional reporting and industry services will help accelerate the flow and efficiency of information, talent, capital, and resources within the industry.

5Y Capital believes that Synced's deep cultivation of the AI field gives it exceptional sensitivity in both industry and academic dimensions, and that it will develop further in gathering industry talent, information, and capital. 5Y has long been committed to partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs to build great tech companies, and AI is a key focus area it has followed for the long term, having made early investments in Horizon Robotics, Tuputech, Zhuiyi, and Kangfuzi, among others. 5Y consistently seeks new entrepreneurial opportunities driven by algorithms with closed-loop capabilities in both data and business. Going forward, 5Y Capital will work with Synced to jointly explore new products and new markets driven by underlying AI technology.

Finally, Yu Hu, representing Xunchan Tou, said: "Along with the continuous development of AI in China and worldwide, Synced has over the past several years gone deep into the core of technology and industry, becoming a bridge connecting China's AI technology industry with the global frontier. Over its eighteen years since founding, iFlytek has taken 'using AI to change the world in China' as its motto, sharing highly consistent core values with Synced. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with Synced in the future journey of China leading the world in AI, striving together to create brilliance!"