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“Copying Chinese technology and business models” has become a major trend for Silicon Valley startups
2019-01-02 16:39:04
https://www.toutiao.com/a6641816217034162702/
Inadvertently, 2018 passed by. In the past year, Silicon Valley's investment environment has experienced fluctuations as external conditions have changed. Some of the investment tracks that had caused heated discussion in 2017, some of them have become heroic after the baptism of 2018, and some have been robbed of the limelight by emerging investment themes.
In 2019, the investment community Silicon Valley interviewed a number of Silicon Valley investors, and talked with them about the many popular tracks in Silicon Valley investment in 2018, and their potential stocks that are expected to shine in the coming year.
First, artificial intelligence: the market is not hot, the total investment is expected to hit a record high
In the feature article at the end of 2017, we listed artificial intelligence as the first popular track for Silicon Valley investments. In 2018, the capital market's attention to the field of artificial intelligence has not diminished. According to Stastata's statistics, in the US capital market in 2018, the total amount of investment in artificial intelligence on the Q1 and Q2 seasons alone has reached 4.2 billion US dollars, exceeding the total investment in artificial intelligence in the US capital market in 2016. And accounted for more than 80% of the total investment in artificial intelligence in the US capital market in 2017. In 2018, the enthusiasm for investment in artificial intelligence in the US market reached a new high, and there is almost no suspense. KPMG's related report released in 2018 predicts that by 2025, the total investment in the AI industry in the global market will increase from the current $12.4 billion to $23.2 billion. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, artificial intelligence technology will obviously remain the top track for investors.
The Executive’s AI Playbook, published by McKinsey, shows that the current capital market investment in artificial intelligence technology is characterized by diversity and diversity. In the field of artificial intelligence, capital is distributed in some industries where landing applications are relatively mature. At present, retail, logistics, insurance, finance, autonomous driving, medicine and other fields are favored by more investors. Li Jun, one of the respondents of this topic and the founding partner of Wisemont Capital, a Silicon Valley first-line investment team, said that the funds he manages are very promising for the application of artificial intelligence technology. In 2018, Wisemont Capital had an investment layout at each vertical artificial intelligence level, including the underlying chip, mid-level sensing technology, and upper-level scene applications.
Many Silicon Valley investors interviewed by the investment community mentioned that compared with 2017, artificial intelligence experienced more baptism from concept to application scene transformation in 2018. In their view, the application of artificial intelligence technology in the US market has been relatively smooth in the past year. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology still needs to span long-term journeys. The investment community has summarized a number of viewpoints and summarized the following key points in the investment direction of artificial intelligence in 2018:
AI+ medical color is verified
In a special interview last year, a number of Silicon Valley investors expressed their optimism about the application of artificial intelligence technology in the medical field. In the past year, the benign effects of artificial intelligence and medical integration seem to validate the views of these investors.
A report by JASON, a think tank of top US experts in the US that serves the US government, shows that artificial intelligence technology has played an important role in many scenarios in the medical environment. At present, artificial intelligence has made long-term breakthroughs in drug development and diagnosis, and has made "revolutionary progress" in the field of intelligent devices for diagnosis and treatment and monitoring of diseases. In December 2018, Reaction Data, a statistical agency focused on medical data, conducted a survey on artificial intelligence technology for first-line imaging medical experts in the United States. According to the survey, only 16% of imaging medical practitioners believe that “we will never use artificial intelligence technology”, and the remaining 84% of respondents have already applied or are ready to apply artificial intelligence technology.
Zhang Jian, a founding partner of the Fusion Fund, selected as one of the 100 Young World Leaders under the age of 40 in the Davos World Economic Forum in 2018, told the investment community that medical care is an industry that can fully embody the superiority of artificial intelligence.
“The long-standing problem in the medical industry is the excessive data and uneven resource allocation,” Zhang said, who has extensive experience in artificial intelligence and medical-related investment topics. “In the past year, we have seen artificial intelligence being helped. To solve this problem, the medical industry has a large amount of data as the basis, and on this basis, there are many specific scenarios that need to solve the problem. Therefore, artificial intelligence has a great opportunity to realize the transformation from technology research and product innovation to this industry."
At the same time, Zhang Wei also proposed that the application of artificial intelligence in the medical industry lies in the intelligent assistance after data accumulation. Specifically, it is the use of artificial intelligence to help professional medical staff improve their work efficiency, rather than replace the role of human beings in this industry. “Currently, there are already a large number of low-cost sensors involved in the medical industry. These technologies can help developers and medical staff quickly obtain a large amount of physiological data information. This information can in turn help to promote the combination of artificial intelligence and traditional medical technology. Medical staff obtain more accurate physiological test data, and thus lead to a more targeted and personalized treatment plan."
Data in the industry of massive data becomes a scarce resource
Silicon Valley co-creation space Crossover Hub co-founder, Centregold Capital partner Chen Jie also believes that artificial intelligence technology has made some progress in supporting medical means. "For example, the combination of data analysis and gastroscope has improved the rate of diagnosis," Chen Jie said.
At the same time, Chen Jie also pointed out that although the massive data of the medical industry is very attractive to artificial intelligence technology, at this stage many enterprises and capital are caught in the bottleneck of obtaining data. “In the past year, the public data in the market has become less and less. In the United States, although the quality of data is higher than in other countries, people and institutions are becoming more aware of the protection of data privacy. Getting data is getting harder and harder."
The best case to prove Chen Jie is the public relations crisis encountered by the artificial intelligence startup Paige.AI. Paige.AI was founded by three in-house staff from the well-known American hospital Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2018, Paige.AI announced an exclusive agreement with the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to receive tissue slicing information for 25 million patients. The agreement suffered a serious rebound in public opinion and brought legal disputes to Paige.AI and the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Li Jun, founding partner of Wisemont Capital, also said that the most important prerequisite for the use of artificial intelligence in the industry is the openness and availability of data. “Now the artificial intelligence has a clear landing scene, including unmanned vehicles, consumer, video and medical fields, which have massive data,” Li Jun said. “Most of the artificial intelligence topics are actually data competition. Li Jun believes that in many fields, China's data is more open. Although the data quality is slightly lower than the US market, the advantage of low-cost access to massive data is unmatched by the US market.
On the other hand, Li Jun suggested that the advantages of large companies in data acquisition are unmatched by small companies. She told the investment community that in the current US market, in the hot areas of artificial intelligence such as driverlessness and medical care, the advantage of big companies to build a moat with data is relatively obvious. From the past year, start-ups in these areas have begun to face higher barriers to competition. "To become a rising star in the field of artificial intelligence, we must understand the vertical process of the industry," Li Jun said. "The purpose of applying artificial intelligence technology is to help the industry to informatize and improve the efficiency of the entire industrial structure. Artificial intelligence topics without specific processes will not be favored by the market."
Eric Benhamou, founder of Benhamou Global Ventures, told reporters in the investment community that although large companies have an advantage in data acquisition, the widespread use of artificial intelligence technology in various industries still brings unlimited opportunities to SMEs. "The boom in AI technology is just beginning, and we can't say that large companies have completely monopolized the artificial intelligence industry," Benhamou said.
Benhamou is exemplified by the automotive sector. He said that the market often likes to quote technology such as unmanned vehicles to illustrate the data and technology monopoly of large companies. However, even in the automotive field, small and medium-sized enterprises that focus on artificial intelligence still have much room for improvement. For example, the intelligent parking management system is currently a hot market, and the big companies have not yet touched the market theme. Therefore, for SMEs, it is far better to focus on discovering more valuable new topics than to “hard” the head players who have the advantage of data.
Zhang Wei proposed that the artificial intelligence industry in the United States has entered a relatively comprehensive and stable growth stage. Next, the artificial intelligence technology in the United States will likely enter a more refined process. She said that in many areas, including medical and industrial, artificial intelligence applications are still at a relatively low level. The next stage of the artificial intelligence market is likely to be a further deep integration of artificial intelligence technology and industry. At the same time, the further collaboration between the two huge artificial intelligence markets in China and the United States to make up for each other's lack of quality and quantity of data is also the meaning of the development of artificial intelligence. Li Jun pointed out that the macro trend of investment in the field of artificial intelligence has shifted from breadth to depth, which will help improve the efficiency and profitability of enterprises. "This is especially important in the current economic environment where the overall trend is conservative," Li Jun said.
Second, biotechnology: there is foam in the heat, technology still needs to wait
In the past year, biotechnology has clearly become one of the most eye-catching investment themes in the US market. Under the background of the FDA's favorable process of drug R&D approval, the enthusiasm of the capital market for biotechnology has increased significantly. According to data released by Fuxing Capital, 47 biotech companies in the first three quarters of 2018 had a successful IPO in the US, and the number of biotech companies surpassing the 2016 and 2017 IPOs. At the same time, biotech stocks in the US IPO accounted for 30% of the total IPO technology stocks in the same period, and the data increased by 7% compared with the same period in 2017. It can be said that biotechnology has ushered in an outburst in 2018.
The largest biotech IPO in history, the Morena Therapeutics, which has been valued at more than $7 billion, went on sale in December, bringing this year's biotech fever to its climax at the end of the year. However, just as Moderna Therapeutics, which focuses on mRNA therapy, has experienced a major break in the market after its launch, the biotechnology field, which is currently being sought after by global capital, is also questioned by excessive speculation, gimmicks greater than substance, and long landing periods.
Most of the Silicon Valley investors who participated in the interview gave positive recognition to the performance of biotechnology in 2018. At the same time, many investors expressed concern about the excessive attention paid by the current capital market to the biotechnology field.
Basic research ushered in a breakthrough
The highest light of biotechnology research in the past year is that American scientist James Ellison, who specializes in cancer immunotherapy, and Japanese scientist Benedict have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The two scientists discovered ways to eliminate the "brakes" that prevent the immune system from attacking tumor cells from different angles, a move that has been hailed as "a revolution in cancer immunotherapy." Nobel committee member Kras Carr said that the immunotherapy based on this discovery is "very convincing" and "(in use) is a good time."
In fact, the revolutionary breakthrough in the removal of immunotherapy has won the highest award. In 2018, biotechnology in the fields of stem cell research, human genetic engineering, targeted therapy, virtual reality/augmented reality assisted surgery, CRISPR, organ 3D printing and remodeling of nerves , have achieved a certain degree of scientific research progress.
In this regard, Chen Jie commented, “Basic research in biotechnology has accumulated for many years. In the past few years, key technologies such as genetic testing and editing technologies and immunotherapy have ushered in breakthroughs. These technological advances are the formation of biotechnology investments. The basic conditions of the craze.” Chen Jie’s Centregold Capital itself also invested in biotechnology in 2018 and successfully completed the exit case.
Li Jun also believes that the technological breakthroughs in biotechnology in hotspots such as immunotherapy and gene editing have brought "hot spots" to the market.
Ignore the investment threshold
Zhang Wei called on investors to look at the boom in biotechnology with a calm attitude. Her Fusion Fund recently invested in several biotech companies in 2018, including a third-generation gene sequencing technology company that is currently on the market. The startup company believes that the concentrated outbreak of IPO does not mean that the entire biotech technology has entered The maturity period.
"The pursuit of biotechnology in the 2018 capital market is not enough to show that the entire biotechnology has matured. No matter whether it is genetic sequencing or immunotherapy, many technologies that sound promising are actually far from commercialization." Zhang Wei told reporters that "there is a cyclical development of technology, and the involvement of capital will help advance technological progress, but it will not allow technology to move away from the normal cycle."
Chen Jie also expressed a similar view: "In 2018, many organizations felt that the biotechnology market was going to break out and actively participate in investment. But the commercialization of biotechnology often takes a long time, and many technologies will take 10 to 20 years. In the IPOs that were concentrated in the last year, many companies actually stayed at the concept stage and there were no real products. Some companies’ stocks have a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 100 times, and some even have no profit at all. The US stock market has fluctuated in the past few months, and we also see The impact on these stocks has been greater. This shows that there is a bubble in the biotech market."
Zhang Wei observed that in 2018, many institutions that had not been involved in the biotechnology field noticed the prospects in this field and began to actively fill the gap. A more striking feature is that Silicon Valley's major funds are working hard to recruit partners with biotech and medical backgrounds. Zhang Wei, who owns the background of biomedical entrepreneurship, can not ignore the professional threshold in the field of biotechnology. “Relatively speaking, there is a certain investment threshold in the field of biotechnology,” Zhang said. “In the past year, a large number of non-biotech background capitals have flooded into this industry. On the one hand, this has promoted the prosperity of the industry, but On the other hand, this also increases the risk of bubbles."
Li Jun also believes that the current biotechnology market “has a phenomenon of (investment) and neglects risks”. Although her fund has a layout in the field of biotechnology, she has chosen to start from the field of artificial intelligence that she is more familiar with, and use artificial intelligence technology to improve the speed of research and development of new drugs and assist in diagnosis and treatment as an entry point.
Silicon Valley investors are not alarmist about the bubble in the biotech sector. In September 2018, the "Biotech Unicorn" T, once regarded as the "Silicon Valley Miracle" and with a valuation of over $9 billion
Heranos finally disbanded debt service after the painstaking search. The fall of Theranos from "biotech star" to "fraud group" cast a layer of gray on the hot biotech sector this year, and also sounded the alarm for later investors and entrepreneurs.
Third, "copy China": the trade track under the smoke, the quiet track
For Chinese and American cross-border investors, the macro environment in 2018 is hard to call excellent. The outbreak of the trade war has added a lot of resistance to the political and economic exchanges between China and the United States. Over the past year, relations between the two countries have experienced ups and downs, and the cross-border investment environment has experienced a certain degree of bumps. However, under the smoke of trade wars, an investment model called Copy From China has emerged and is playing an important role in the 2018 cross-border investment landscape between China and the United States.
Relatively speaking, the capital market is more familiar with the “Copy To China” model that used to exist in the past. As the name suggests, the so-called "Chinese copy" means that Chinese companies have moved the business model that has matured in the US market to the Chinese market. After the localization process, they have taken root and created a model for copying products. Looking at it, China’s current Internet giants are indeed at the beginning of the establishment of the "Chinese version of Craigslist", "Chinese version of Groupon", Chinese version of "Twitter", "Chinese version of Uber" and "Chinese version of Google" The prefix of the class.
But now, the "copy" trend still exists, but the direction has changed. At the beginning of 2018, Rebecca Fannin, an authoritative expert on international investment trends, wrote in Forbes. Watch For China’s Silicon Valley To Dominate In 2018 And Beyond will call on the investment market to focus on China’s technology and business model. This article was quickly reprinted by the Chinese official media, which also set off a wave of attention and discussion on the phenomenon of “copying China”.
Fannin lamented in her article, "It is no longer the case of China copying Western ideas. Instead, China's ideas are spreading to the West and being copied." As she said, there are more and more products and business models with Chinese backgrounds in the US market today. In the American fire, Tinder, Tik Tok, and Venmo all have the shadow of the "Chinese prototype." It is a fact that Silicon Valley is increasingly looking to China and trying to draw inspiration from China.
Cross-border investors in Silicon Valley interviewed by the investment community believe that “copying China” is currently a hot trend. In some of these specific areas, the advantages of Chinese products and Chinese background investors are particularly evident.
Chen Jie said that an important reason for the market to shift from "Chinese copy" to "copy China" is the elimination of Chinese and foreign information barriers.
"In the past, for various reasons, the Chinese market is more difficult to access the outside world," Chen Jie said. "In the age when international students are relatively scarce, we often hear the vision of the students who want to bring good things abroad." Many 'Chinese copy' products and models have indeed been so successful. But now, such a statement has not been established. At present, the information barriers between China and foreign countries are almost non-existent. It is not that there is no 'Chinese copy' now, and It is the Chinese market that can see the potential of foreign countries in the first place, and start localized innovation. Waiting for the success of foreign products or models, and then copying the whole method is no longer feasible."
Correspondingly, the demand for observation in China by overseas markets has also increased significantly. Just as there were information barriers when Chinese society contacted overseas cultures, when overseas markets are pursuing the phenomenon of “copying China”, they also need to consider the cost of contacting the relatively unfamiliar Chinese market.
Chen Jie believes that cross-border investors in the Chinese context have played an important role in facilitating the rise of the “Copy China” model. “Relatively speaking, Chinese capital and investors are more likely to be exposed to the “copy China” model of start-ups. Many Chinese companies with strength and potential have difficulty in accessing Chinese capital in the first round of financing. Companies that copy the 'China' model are likely to choose to contact Chinese cross-border investors who can fully interpret the corporate model at the time of the start-up, rather than the overseas capital that is strong but lacks the ability to interpret China's social context, in order to improve communication efficiency. So in 2019 we will set the overseas Chinese model as one of our main tracks." In 2018, Chen Jie's Centregold Capital made a first-round lead for copying the Chinese takeaway model and the takeaway takeaway in Vancouver. Currently, the company's annual sales have exceeded 150 million yuan and has begun to expand into the Seattle market.
Li Jun believes that whether the "copy China" model can be fully successful remains to be seen. “'The penetration rate of China's mobile applications is higher than that of the United States. At the same time, it has other users' unmatched user volume and massive data iterations. In recent years, it has attracted overseas attention such as vibrato, fast-handed, multi-tasking, shared bicycle, mobile payment and the like. And patterns, all of which occur in such an environment. In Li Jun’s view, whether “Copy China” can jump out of the restrictions of mobile applications and achieve success in other fields will be a major attraction in the future market.
As Li Jun said, the penetration rate of smartphones in the Chinese market is much higher than other markets. According to a report by DCM Ventures, a Silicon Valley cross-border investment institution, the Internet penetration rate in the Chinese market in 2018 was only 53.2%, much lower than the US. But 95% of the 53.2% of the population who have access to the Internet have mobile devices that can access the Internet. In 2016, US mobile payment transactions amounted to US$112 billion, while China’s data for the same period reached 9 trillion. It can be said that the Chinese society directly skipped the "PC era" and entered the era of mobile intelligence in advance. This special social development trend is the “advance amount” that China brings in the corresponding fields, which cannot be demanded by other markets. In the "non-advantageous field", China's products and models obviously need more capital and technical support to catch up with the success of the "copy China" wave.
At the same time, Li Jun also pointed out that while seeing "Copy China" is popular, the market should also pay attention to the acclimatization of Chinese products and models after going out to sea. “Relatively, 'Copy China’ has achieved less resistance in areas where social and cultural environments such as Southeast Asia are close to China,” Li Jun told reporters. “And in the US market, trying to overcome cultural differences requires many challenges.”
Counting the best of the world and choosing the ofo shared bicycles that adopted a radical expansion strategy in Seattle, they eventually retired in 2018, becoming the latest case of the “Copy China” model being frustrated by the acclimatization.
“The market is still groping for the 'copy China' model. Both entrepreneurs and investors should adopt a more open mind to learn from overseas markets. Localization according to local market demand is the success. The key," Li Jun said.
Fourth, the "potential stocks" in the eyes of investors
Intelligent operation and maintenance
With the continuous complication of the market and social environment, the traditional operation and maintenance model is insufficient to meet the demand. To meet the Internet landing scenario that carries large traffic and provides a high-quality user experience, enterprises are looking for a more efficient and reliable operation and maintenance model. Intelligent operation and maintenance based on AI technology seems to be expected to become an inevitable direction for solving the operation and maintenance problem in the market.
Eric Benhamou, founder of Benhamou Global Ventures, said in an interview with the investment community that he has begun to deploy intelligent operation and maintenance, and is optimistic about the development prospects of this field in the next year and in the future.
In 2018, Benhamou Global Ventures invested in 6d bytes, a robotics company that specializes in intelligent operation and maintenance technology. The company's personalized food custom robot Blendid, which was developed in 2018, has entered trial operation and has gained good market response. Recently, Blendid robots will enter Nvidia and the Adobe cafeteria and plan to enter more public areas in the future.
Information technology research organization Gartner predicts that the global deployment rate of intelligent operation and maintenance technology will reach 25% in 2019. The development and popularization of intelligent operation and maintenance will provide a new scene for the application of artificial intelligence technology.
2. Edge calculation
Zhang Wei, the founding partner of the Fusion Fund, whose investment direction has always been concerned by the market, told reporters in the investment community that he is optimistic that edge computing will make great progress in 2019. "Edge computing is the area we have been focusing on and it is also the direction we continue to look forward to next year," Zhang said. "At present, edge computing has gained a lot of attention in Silicon Valley, and we have already deployed some top edge computing startups."
The processing model of cloud computing big data has become the mainstream in the past period of time, but the problems such as occupying more bandwidth and higher price have brought corresponding problems to the market. Zhang Wei described the edge calculation as “an upgraded version of cloud computing” and identified it as “a key technology that can bring fundamental improvements to various industries and industries”.
Like cloud computing, which is currently highly applicable, edge computing is also a way of processing big data. However, compared to the cloud computing that needs to transfer data to the cloud, edge computing data processing can be done only at the edge. Edge computing helps to reduce the bandwidth burden of the core network, and it can be used in conjunction with cloud computing to improve data transmission and processing efficiency and save costs.
A similar view with Zhang Wei is Chen Jie, a partner at Centregold Capital. Chen Jie told reporters, "There is more and more data generated in the market, and data transmission has become a key issue. Edge computing devices have reduced data transmission to the cloud, and to some extent solved the negative problems caused by big data transmission. Therefore, there is a good prospect in the future."
3. New consumer brands
Li Jun, founding partner of Wisemont Capital, predicts that 2019 may be the key year for more “new consumer brands” to break through. “Traditional brands are gradually losing their appeal to young people,” Li Jun told reporters in the investment community.
At present, "Millennial Generation" is the main consumer of the United States. Accenture, a publicly traded consulting firm, predicts that by 2020, the millennial-generation consumer-driven market will exceed $1.4 trillion. A study by top consulting firm BCG shows that the brand loyalty of the “millennials” in the United States is declining. A personalized and customized niche brand will usher in a broader development prospect.
Li Jun said, "Now the young people are affected by the network culture and network marketing, and they prefer to use personalized, niche brand consumption, including in the fields of beauty, clothing, luxury, etc., we have observed new The rise of consumer brands. This trend is evident in both the US and China markets. In 2019, there may be more popular niche consumer brands."
2019-01-02 16:39:04
https://www.toutiao.com/a6641816217034162702/
Inadvertently, 2018 passed by. In the past year, Silicon Valley's investment environment has experienced fluctuations as external conditions have changed. Some of the investment tracks that had caused heated discussion in 2017, some of them have become heroic after the baptism of 2018, and some have been robbed of the limelight by emerging investment themes.
In 2019, the investment community Silicon Valley interviewed a number of Silicon Valley investors, and talked with them about the many popular tracks in Silicon Valley investment in 2018, and their potential stocks that are expected to shine in the coming year.
First, artificial intelligence: the market is not hot, the total investment is expected to hit a record high
In the feature article at the end of 2017, we listed artificial intelligence as the first popular track for Silicon Valley investments. In 2018, the capital market's attention to the field of artificial intelligence has not diminished. According to Stastata's statistics, in the US capital market in 2018, the total amount of investment in artificial intelligence on the Q1 and Q2 seasons alone has reached 4.2 billion US dollars, exceeding the total investment in artificial intelligence in the US capital market in 2016. And accounted for more than 80% of the total investment in artificial intelligence in the US capital market in 2017. In 2018, the enthusiasm for investment in artificial intelligence in the US market reached a new high, and there is almost no suspense. KPMG's related report released in 2018 predicts that by 2025, the total investment in the AI industry in the global market will increase from the current $12.4 billion to $23.2 billion. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, artificial intelligence technology will obviously remain the top track for investors.
The Executive’s AI Playbook, published by McKinsey, shows that the current capital market investment in artificial intelligence technology is characterized by diversity and diversity. In the field of artificial intelligence, capital is distributed in some industries where landing applications are relatively mature. At present, retail, logistics, insurance, finance, autonomous driving, medicine and other fields are favored by more investors. Li Jun, one of the respondents of this topic and the founding partner of Wisemont Capital, a Silicon Valley first-line investment team, said that the funds he manages are very promising for the application of artificial intelligence technology. In 2018, Wisemont Capital had an investment layout at each vertical artificial intelligence level, including the underlying chip, mid-level sensing technology, and upper-level scene applications.
Many Silicon Valley investors interviewed by the investment community mentioned that compared with 2017, artificial intelligence experienced more baptism from concept to application scene transformation in 2018. In their view, the application of artificial intelligence technology in the US market has been relatively smooth in the past year. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology still needs to span long-term journeys. The investment community has summarized a number of viewpoints and summarized the following key points in the investment direction of artificial intelligence in 2018:
AI+ medical color is verified
In a special interview last year, a number of Silicon Valley investors expressed their optimism about the application of artificial intelligence technology in the medical field. In the past year, the benign effects of artificial intelligence and medical integration seem to validate the views of these investors.
A report by JASON, a think tank of top US experts in the US that serves the US government, shows that artificial intelligence technology has played an important role in many scenarios in the medical environment. At present, artificial intelligence has made long-term breakthroughs in drug development and diagnosis, and has made "revolutionary progress" in the field of intelligent devices for diagnosis and treatment and monitoring of diseases. In December 2018, Reaction Data, a statistical agency focused on medical data, conducted a survey on artificial intelligence technology for first-line imaging medical experts in the United States. According to the survey, only 16% of imaging medical practitioners believe that “we will never use artificial intelligence technology”, and the remaining 84% of respondents have already applied or are ready to apply artificial intelligence technology.
Zhang Jian, a founding partner of the Fusion Fund, selected as one of the 100 Young World Leaders under the age of 40 in the Davos World Economic Forum in 2018, told the investment community that medical care is an industry that can fully embody the superiority of artificial intelligence.
“The long-standing problem in the medical industry is the excessive data and uneven resource allocation,” Zhang said, who has extensive experience in artificial intelligence and medical-related investment topics. “In the past year, we have seen artificial intelligence being helped. To solve this problem, the medical industry has a large amount of data as the basis, and on this basis, there are many specific scenarios that need to solve the problem. Therefore, artificial intelligence has a great opportunity to realize the transformation from technology research and product innovation to this industry."
At the same time, Zhang Wei also proposed that the application of artificial intelligence in the medical industry lies in the intelligent assistance after data accumulation. Specifically, it is the use of artificial intelligence to help professional medical staff improve their work efficiency, rather than replace the role of human beings in this industry. “Currently, there are already a large number of low-cost sensors involved in the medical industry. These technologies can help developers and medical staff quickly obtain a large amount of physiological data information. This information can in turn help to promote the combination of artificial intelligence and traditional medical technology. Medical staff obtain more accurate physiological test data, and thus lead to a more targeted and personalized treatment plan."
Data in the industry of massive data becomes a scarce resource
Silicon Valley co-creation space Crossover Hub co-founder, Centregold Capital partner Chen Jie also believes that artificial intelligence technology has made some progress in supporting medical means. "For example, the combination of data analysis and gastroscope has improved the rate of diagnosis," Chen Jie said.
At the same time, Chen Jie also pointed out that although the massive data of the medical industry is very attractive to artificial intelligence technology, at this stage many enterprises and capital are caught in the bottleneck of obtaining data. “In the past year, the public data in the market has become less and less. In the United States, although the quality of data is higher than in other countries, people and institutions are becoming more aware of the protection of data privacy. Getting data is getting harder and harder."
The best case to prove Chen Jie is the public relations crisis encountered by the artificial intelligence startup Paige.AI. Paige.AI was founded by three in-house staff from the well-known American hospital Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2018, Paige.AI announced an exclusive agreement with the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to receive tissue slicing information for 25 million patients. The agreement suffered a serious rebound in public opinion and brought legal disputes to Paige.AI and the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Li Jun, founding partner of Wisemont Capital, also said that the most important prerequisite for the use of artificial intelligence in the industry is the openness and availability of data. “Now the artificial intelligence has a clear landing scene, including unmanned vehicles, consumer, video and medical fields, which have massive data,” Li Jun said. “Most of the artificial intelligence topics are actually data competition. Li Jun believes that in many fields, China's data is more open. Although the data quality is slightly lower than the US market, the advantage of low-cost access to massive data is unmatched by the US market.
On the other hand, Li Jun suggested that the advantages of large companies in data acquisition are unmatched by small companies. She told the investment community that in the current US market, in the hot areas of artificial intelligence such as driverlessness and medical care, the advantage of big companies to build a moat with data is relatively obvious. From the past year, start-ups in these areas have begun to face higher barriers to competition. "To become a rising star in the field of artificial intelligence, we must understand the vertical process of the industry," Li Jun said. "The purpose of applying artificial intelligence technology is to help the industry to informatize and improve the efficiency of the entire industrial structure. Artificial intelligence topics without specific processes will not be favored by the market."
Eric Benhamou, founder of Benhamou Global Ventures, told reporters in the investment community that although large companies have an advantage in data acquisition, the widespread use of artificial intelligence technology in various industries still brings unlimited opportunities to SMEs. "The boom in AI technology is just beginning, and we can't say that large companies have completely monopolized the artificial intelligence industry," Benhamou said.
Benhamou is exemplified by the automotive sector. He said that the market often likes to quote technology such as unmanned vehicles to illustrate the data and technology monopoly of large companies. However, even in the automotive field, small and medium-sized enterprises that focus on artificial intelligence still have much room for improvement. For example, the intelligent parking management system is currently a hot market, and the big companies have not yet touched the market theme. Therefore, for SMEs, it is far better to focus on discovering more valuable new topics than to “hard” the head players who have the advantage of data.
Zhang Wei proposed that the artificial intelligence industry in the United States has entered a relatively comprehensive and stable growth stage. Next, the artificial intelligence technology in the United States will likely enter a more refined process. She said that in many areas, including medical and industrial, artificial intelligence applications are still at a relatively low level. The next stage of the artificial intelligence market is likely to be a further deep integration of artificial intelligence technology and industry. At the same time, the further collaboration between the two huge artificial intelligence markets in China and the United States to make up for each other's lack of quality and quantity of data is also the meaning of the development of artificial intelligence. Li Jun pointed out that the macro trend of investment in the field of artificial intelligence has shifted from breadth to depth, which will help improve the efficiency and profitability of enterprises. "This is especially important in the current economic environment where the overall trend is conservative," Li Jun said.
Second, biotechnology: there is foam in the heat, technology still needs to wait
In the past year, biotechnology has clearly become one of the most eye-catching investment themes in the US market. Under the background of the FDA's favorable process of drug R&D approval, the enthusiasm of the capital market for biotechnology has increased significantly. According to data released by Fuxing Capital, 47 biotech companies in the first three quarters of 2018 had a successful IPO in the US, and the number of biotech companies surpassing the 2016 and 2017 IPOs. At the same time, biotech stocks in the US IPO accounted for 30% of the total IPO technology stocks in the same period, and the data increased by 7% compared with the same period in 2017. It can be said that biotechnology has ushered in an outburst in 2018.
The largest biotech IPO in history, the Morena Therapeutics, which has been valued at more than $7 billion, went on sale in December, bringing this year's biotech fever to its climax at the end of the year. However, just as Moderna Therapeutics, which focuses on mRNA therapy, has experienced a major break in the market after its launch, the biotechnology field, which is currently being sought after by global capital, is also questioned by excessive speculation, gimmicks greater than substance, and long landing periods.
Most of the Silicon Valley investors who participated in the interview gave positive recognition to the performance of biotechnology in 2018. At the same time, many investors expressed concern about the excessive attention paid by the current capital market to the biotechnology field.
Basic research ushered in a breakthrough
The highest light of biotechnology research in the past year is that American scientist James Ellison, who specializes in cancer immunotherapy, and Japanese scientist Benedict have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The two scientists discovered ways to eliminate the "brakes" that prevent the immune system from attacking tumor cells from different angles, a move that has been hailed as "a revolution in cancer immunotherapy." Nobel committee member Kras Carr said that the immunotherapy based on this discovery is "very convincing" and "(in use) is a good time."
In fact, the revolutionary breakthrough in the removal of immunotherapy has won the highest award. In 2018, biotechnology in the fields of stem cell research, human genetic engineering, targeted therapy, virtual reality/augmented reality assisted surgery, CRISPR, organ 3D printing and remodeling of nerves , have achieved a certain degree of scientific research progress.
In this regard, Chen Jie commented, “Basic research in biotechnology has accumulated for many years. In the past few years, key technologies such as genetic testing and editing technologies and immunotherapy have ushered in breakthroughs. These technological advances are the formation of biotechnology investments. The basic conditions of the craze.” Chen Jie’s Centregold Capital itself also invested in biotechnology in 2018 and successfully completed the exit case.
Li Jun also believes that the technological breakthroughs in biotechnology in hotspots such as immunotherapy and gene editing have brought "hot spots" to the market.
Ignore the investment threshold
Zhang Wei called on investors to look at the boom in biotechnology with a calm attitude. Her Fusion Fund recently invested in several biotech companies in 2018, including a third-generation gene sequencing technology company that is currently on the market. The startup company believes that the concentrated outbreak of IPO does not mean that the entire biotech technology has entered The maturity period.
"The pursuit of biotechnology in the 2018 capital market is not enough to show that the entire biotechnology has matured. No matter whether it is genetic sequencing or immunotherapy, many technologies that sound promising are actually far from commercialization." Zhang Wei told reporters that "there is a cyclical development of technology, and the involvement of capital will help advance technological progress, but it will not allow technology to move away from the normal cycle."
Chen Jie also expressed a similar view: "In 2018, many organizations felt that the biotechnology market was going to break out and actively participate in investment. But the commercialization of biotechnology often takes a long time, and many technologies will take 10 to 20 years. In the IPOs that were concentrated in the last year, many companies actually stayed at the concept stage and there were no real products. Some companies’ stocks have a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 100 times, and some even have no profit at all. The US stock market has fluctuated in the past few months, and we also see The impact on these stocks has been greater. This shows that there is a bubble in the biotech market."
Zhang Wei observed that in 2018, many institutions that had not been involved in the biotechnology field noticed the prospects in this field and began to actively fill the gap. A more striking feature is that Silicon Valley's major funds are working hard to recruit partners with biotech and medical backgrounds. Zhang Wei, who owns the background of biomedical entrepreneurship, can not ignore the professional threshold in the field of biotechnology. “Relatively speaking, there is a certain investment threshold in the field of biotechnology,” Zhang said. “In the past year, a large number of non-biotech background capitals have flooded into this industry. On the one hand, this has promoted the prosperity of the industry, but On the other hand, this also increases the risk of bubbles."
Li Jun also believes that the current biotechnology market “has a phenomenon of (investment) and neglects risks”. Although her fund has a layout in the field of biotechnology, she has chosen to start from the field of artificial intelligence that she is more familiar with, and use artificial intelligence technology to improve the speed of research and development of new drugs and assist in diagnosis and treatment as an entry point.
Silicon Valley investors are not alarmist about the bubble in the biotech sector. In September 2018, the "Biotech Unicorn" T, once regarded as the "Silicon Valley Miracle" and with a valuation of over $9 billion
Heranos finally disbanded debt service after the painstaking search. The fall of Theranos from "biotech star" to "fraud group" cast a layer of gray on the hot biotech sector this year, and also sounded the alarm for later investors and entrepreneurs.
Third, "copy China": the trade track under the smoke, the quiet track
For Chinese and American cross-border investors, the macro environment in 2018 is hard to call excellent. The outbreak of the trade war has added a lot of resistance to the political and economic exchanges between China and the United States. Over the past year, relations between the two countries have experienced ups and downs, and the cross-border investment environment has experienced a certain degree of bumps. However, under the smoke of trade wars, an investment model called Copy From China has emerged and is playing an important role in the 2018 cross-border investment landscape between China and the United States.
Relatively speaking, the capital market is more familiar with the “Copy To China” model that used to exist in the past. As the name suggests, the so-called "Chinese copy" means that Chinese companies have moved the business model that has matured in the US market to the Chinese market. After the localization process, they have taken root and created a model for copying products. Looking at it, China’s current Internet giants are indeed at the beginning of the establishment of the "Chinese version of Craigslist", "Chinese version of Groupon", Chinese version of "Twitter", "Chinese version of Uber" and "Chinese version of Google" The prefix of the class.
But now, the "copy" trend still exists, but the direction has changed. At the beginning of 2018, Rebecca Fannin, an authoritative expert on international investment trends, wrote in Forbes. Watch For China’s Silicon Valley To Dominate In 2018 And Beyond will call on the investment market to focus on China’s technology and business model. This article was quickly reprinted by the Chinese official media, which also set off a wave of attention and discussion on the phenomenon of “copying China”.
Fannin lamented in her article, "It is no longer the case of China copying Western ideas. Instead, China's ideas are spreading to the West and being copied." As she said, there are more and more products and business models with Chinese backgrounds in the US market today. In the American fire, Tinder, Tik Tok, and Venmo all have the shadow of the "Chinese prototype." It is a fact that Silicon Valley is increasingly looking to China and trying to draw inspiration from China.
Cross-border investors in Silicon Valley interviewed by the investment community believe that “copying China” is currently a hot trend. In some of these specific areas, the advantages of Chinese products and Chinese background investors are particularly evident.
Chen Jie said that an important reason for the market to shift from "Chinese copy" to "copy China" is the elimination of Chinese and foreign information barriers.
"In the past, for various reasons, the Chinese market is more difficult to access the outside world," Chen Jie said. "In the age when international students are relatively scarce, we often hear the vision of the students who want to bring good things abroad." Many 'Chinese copy' products and models have indeed been so successful. But now, such a statement has not been established. At present, the information barriers between China and foreign countries are almost non-existent. It is not that there is no 'Chinese copy' now, and It is the Chinese market that can see the potential of foreign countries in the first place, and start localized innovation. Waiting for the success of foreign products or models, and then copying the whole method is no longer feasible."
Correspondingly, the demand for observation in China by overseas markets has also increased significantly. Just as there were information barriers when Chinese society contacted overseas cultures, when overseas markets are pursuing the phenomenon of “copying China”, they also need to consider the cost of contacting the relatively unfamiliar Chinese market.
Chen Jie believes that cross-border investors in the Chinese context have played an important role in facilitating the rise of the “Copy China” model. “Relatively speaking, Chinese capital and investors are more likely to be exposed to the “copy China” model of start-ups. Many Chinese companies with strength and potential have difficulty in accessing Chinese capital in the first round of financing. Companies that copy the 'China' model are likely to choose to contact Chinese cross-border investors who can fully interpret the corporate model at the time of the start-up, rather than the overseas capital that is strong but lacks the ability to interpret China's social context, in order to improve communication efficiency. So in 2019 we will set the overseas Chinese model as one of our main tracks." In 2018, Chen Jie's Centregold Capital made a first-round lead for copying the Chinese takeaway model and the takeaway takeaway in Vancouver. Currently, the company's annual sales have exceeded 150 million yuan and has begun to expand into the Seattle market.
Li Jun believes that whether the "copy China" model can be fully successful remains to be seen. “'The penetration rate of China's mobile applications is higher than that of the United States. At the same time, it has other users' unmatched user volume and massive data iterations. In recent years, it has attracted overseas attention such as vibrato, fast-handed, multi-tasking, shared bicycle, mobile payment and the like. And patterns, all of which occur in such an environment. In Li Jun’s view, whether “Copy China” can jump out of the restrictions of mobile applications and achieve success in other fields will be a major attraction in the future market.
As Li Jun said, the penetration rate of smartphones in the Chinese market is much higher than other markets. According to a report by DCM Ventures, a Silicon Valley cross-border investment institution, the Internet penetration rate in the Chinese market in 2018 was only 53.2%, much lower than the US. But 95% of the 53.2% of the population who have access to the Internet have mobile devices that can access the Internet. In 2016, US mobile payment transactions amounted to US$112 billion, while China’s data for the same period reached 9 trillion. It can be said that the Chinese society directly skipped the "PC era" and entered the era of mobile intelligence in advance. This special social development trend is the “advance amount” that China brings in the corresponding fields, which cannot be demanded by other markets. In the "non-advantageous field", China's products and models obviously need more capital and technical support to catch up with the success of the "copy China" wave.
At the same time, Li Jun also pointed out that while seeing "Copy China" is popular, the market should also pay attention to the acclimatization of Chinese products and models after going out to sea. “Relatively, 'Copy China’ has achieved less resistance in areas where social and cultural environments such as Southeast Asia are close to China,” Li Jun told reporters. “And in the US market, trying to overcome cultural differences requires many challenges.”
Counting the best of the world and choosing the ofo shared bicycles that adopted a radical expansion strategy in Seattle, they eventually retired in 2018, becoming the latest case of the “Copy China” model being frustrated by the acclimatization.
“The market is still groping for the 'copy China' model. Both entrepreneurs and investors should adopt a more open mind to learn from overseas markets. Localization according to local market demand is the success. The key," Li Jun said.
Fourth, the "potential stocks" in the eyes of investors
Intelligent operation and maintenance
With the continuous complication of the market and social environment, the traditional operation and maintenance model is insufficient to meet the demand. To meet the Internet landing scenario that carries large traffic and provides a high-quality user experience, enterprises are looking for a more efficient and reliable operation and maintenance model. Intelligent operation and maintenance based on AI technology seems to be expected to become an inevitable direction for solving the operation and maintenance problem in the market.
Eric Benhamou, founder of Benhamou Global Ventures, said in an interview with the investment community that he has begun to deploy intelligent operation and maintenance, and is optimistic about the development prospects of this field in the next year and in the future.
In 2018, Benhamou Global Ventures invested in 6d bytes, a robotics company that specializes in intelligent operation and maintenance technology. The company's personalized food custom robot Blendid, which was developed in 2018, has entered trial operation and has gained good market response. Recently, Blendid robots will enter Nvidia and the Adobe cafeteria and plan to enter more public areas in the future.
Information technology research organization Gartner predicts that the global deployment rate of intelligent operation and maintenance technology will reach 25% in 2019. The development and popularization of intelligent operation and maintenance will provide a new scene for the application of artificial intelligence technology.
2. Edge calculation
Zhang Wei, the founding partner of the Fusion Fund, whose investment direction has always been concerned by the market, told reporters in the investment community that he is optimistic that edge computing will make great progress in 2019. "Edge computing is the area we have been focusing on and it is also the direction we continue to look forward to next year," Zhang said. "At present, edge computing has gained a lot of attention in Silicon Valley, and we have already deployed some top edge computing startups."
The processing model of cloud computing big data has become the mainstream in the past period of time, but the problems such as occupying more bandwidth and higher price have brought corresponding problems to the market. Zhang Wei described the edge calculation as “an upgraded version of cloud computing” and identified it as “a key technology that can bring fundamental improvements to various industries and industries”.
Like cloud computing, which is currently highly applicable, edge computing is also a way of processing big data. However, compared to the cloud computing that needs to transfer data to the cloud, edge computing data processing can be done only at the edge. Edge computing helps to reduce the bandwidth burden of the core network, and it can be used in conjunction with cloud computing to improve data transmission and processing efficiency and save costs.
A similar view with Zhang Wei is Chen Jie, a partner at Centregold Capital. Chen Jie told reporters, "There is more and more data generated in the market, and data transmission has become a key issue. Edge computing devices have reduced data transmission to the cloud, and to some extent solved the negative problems caused by big data transmission. Therefore, there is a good prospect in the future."
3. New consumer brands
Li Jun, founding partner of Wisemont Capital, predicts that 2019 may be the key year for more “new consumer brands” to break through. “Traditional brands are gradually losing their appeal to young people,” Li Jun told reporters in the investment community.
At present, "Millennial Generation" is the main consumer of the United States. Accenture, a publicly traded consulting firm, predicts that by 2020, the millennial-generation consumer-driven market will exceed $1.4 trillion. A study by top consulting firm BCG shows that the brand loyalty of the “millennials” in the United States is declining. A personalized and customized niche brand will usher in a broader development prospect.
Li Jun said, "Now the young people are affected by the network culture and network marketing, and they prefer to use personalized, niche brand consumption, including in the fields of beauty, clothing, luxury, etc., we have observed new The rise of consumer brands. This trend is evident in both the US and China markets. In 2019, there may be more popular niche consumer brands."
