Tianyan Xinzhi | [Inventory] Analysis of the Investment and Financing Situation of the Artificial Intelligence Industry in the First Half of 2023

Artificial intelligence, the "synonym" of cutting-edge technology, will become the hottest year in history in 2023. From the "fire" of the Primary market to the Secondary market, the flavor of "AI" will permeate everywhere

Artificial intelligence, the "synonym" of cutting-edge technology, will become the hottest year in history in 2023. From the "fire" of the Primary market to the Secondary market, the flavor of "AI" will permeate everywhere. From the Turing test in 1950 to the advent of Chat-GPT at the end of 2022, the development of AI has also experienced ups and downs, always developing in parallel with hope and "disappointment".

Venture Capital is an adventurous journey for a group of "risk" enthusiasts, whose behavior can to some extent reflect the industry's popularity and trends. From the investment and financing data of the artificial intelligence industry since 2000, the overall trend is upward. Among them, the number of financing events and financing amounts reached their peak in 2018 and 2021. The reason for this lies in the incentives of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", as well as the impact of the industry itself accumulating over the years and exploding in an "instant". For example, industries related to artificial intelligence such as autonomous driving and VR have gained market popularity.

After experiencing a slightly dull year in 2022, guided by popular fields such as big models and AGI (General Artificial Intelligence), the artificial intelligence market in 2023 has ushered in a new round of upward growth, once again attracting attention and discussion from the market and academia.

From the specific monthly data changes in the first half of the year, the average monthly financing events reached 48. From the perspective of specific monthly distribution, the number of financing events in May ranked first in the month, with 61; In addition, June and March ranked second and third with 54 and 50 respectively.

This year, the fire of ChatGPT ignited public enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. The 2023 Global Digital Economy Conference Artificial Intelligence Summit Forum and the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference bring together industry experts from various fields around the world to discuss hot topics in the field of artificial intelligence. Big models and AGI (General Artificial Intelligence) have become the "standard" features of the conference.

Artificial intelligence, in view of its "interdisciplinary" nature, is also a "hundred flowers bloom" in the related frontier industries, ranging from Natural language processing, computer vision to chips, robots and automatic driving.

From the industry distribution of financing events in the first half of 2023, cutting-edge technology, robotics, and integrated circuits ranked among the top in terms of financing events. After these three, autonomous driving also had 20 related financing events.

AI chips, a competitive place for computing power, autonomous driving, making travel smarter, robots, a good helper for improving work efficiency, AI pharmaceuticals, making pharmaceutical research and development more efficient

The significant value of artificial intelligence is not only reflected in the cutting-edge scientific field, but also in its deep integration with various industries. Only by forming a good industrial ecology, business model, and industrial chain closed-loop can artificial intelligence be more widely used by people and ordinary consumers. According to public data, China's artificial intelligence industry is thriving, with a core industry scale of 500 billion yuan and innovative achievements constantly emerging.

At the 2023 China International Digital and Software Services Fair held in Dalian, Liaoning Province, the AMiner team of the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University jointly released the ranking of the world's most innovative AI cities in 2023 and the analysis report of the world's top 500 AI innovation cities. According to the report, China has 42 cities on the list, with the second largest number of cities in the world.

Among the top 500 global AI innovation cities, there are 42 cities in China. Among the top 100 global AI innovation cities, there are 19 cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Taipei, Wuhan, Hefei, Shenyang, Chengdu, Tianjin, Harbin, Changsha, Xinzhu, Dalian and Jinan. It is worth noting that Beijing and Shanghai, as top tier cities in China, have entered the top ten in the world in terms of artificial intelligence innovation index, with Beijing ranking second in the world in terms of artificial intelligence innovation index.

The development of AI industry has been Tight junction with scientific and technological innovation in relevant regions. Looking at the development of the artificial intelligence industry in domestic provinces and cities, it is evident that there is a significant positive correlation between the number of artificial intelligence financing events and local policy measures, regional GDP, and investment in research and development funds.

From the geographical distribution of financing events, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu ranked among the top in terms of the number of related financing events, with 76, 59, 53, 37, and 30, respectively.

In addition, there were also 6 financing events in Anhui and Shaanxi, respectively.

Since artificial intelligence technology was included in the national plan, it has become a must-have for future technological innovation and development. Currently, multiple cities have accelerated on this new track. Since the end of 2022, multiple provinces and regions across the country have collectively released policies and measures related to the development of artificial intelligence. From the "top-level design" stage, they have broken down barriers, promoted original innovation, promoted data circulation, and enabled more data to be effectively used, thereby promoting the healthy development of the industry.

Investing in small and early investments in hard technology "aims to create a favorable investment and financing ecosystem from the policy perspective, guide capital support for such enterprises, boost confidence in investment enterprises, and further activate the vitality of the innovation market.

Venture capital is like a bridge connecting the founder of a company - the one who seeks money - and the investor of a risk institution - the one who gives money. When the founder meets investors, there are financing nodes such as angel round, A round, B round, C round, D round, and IPO boss. For investors, these nodes represent changes in both the probability of success and the expected return. As they progress further, the risk decreases and the return naturally decreases.

Angel wheel is to turn ideas into reality, to make products; Round A is to verify income, and it is important for someone to be willing to pay; In round B, what needs to be verified is the profit model, which means making money; Round C is to verify whether you can break through from 1 to 10, from a single point to the entire network market, and the key here is your operational ability; If you can reach the top few and occupy a stable market, then the D-round will come.

From the distribution of financing events in the first half of 2023, angel round, A round, and strategic financing events ranked among the top, with 59, 57, and 38 events, respectively.

Starting a business is a "nine to one death" strategy. There are only a few companies that can walk from the seed and angel wheel to the C and D wheels, and the curse of "C wheel death" is still widely circulated. In addition to investors' money, strengthening one's own "hematopoietic" ability is also an important way for enterprises to achieve sustainable development.

As a group with the most sensitive sense of cutting-edge technology development trends and industry changes, venture capital institutions are like a "shark" wandering in the "technology ocean", closely monitoring the movements of every "prey" and preparing to take action.

According to the number of 'deals' by investment institutions in 2023, Qiji Chuangtan, Innovation Factory, and Hillhouse Venture Capital (tied) ranked among the top, with 8 and 5 respectively.

In addition to the three institutions mentioned above, well-known VC firms such as Lenovo Venture Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Lanchi Venture Capital also have records of investment "making moves". Among CVC, Tencent Investment, Baidu Venture Capital, and Hubble Investment (a subsidiary of Huawei) are also on the list. Baidu needless to say, AllinAI's attitude has given it a leading position in both the field of autonomous driving and the field of large models; Hubble Investment mainly focuses on "hard technology" investments, and it is well-known that its investment in the chip field is very "generous"; Tencent Investment not only has an interest in games, but also spares no effort in laying out cutting-edge development. It has appeared on the investor list of star level startups multiple times this year, including a similar "Beyond Light Years" that has been included by Meitu.

In addition to the above institutions, what is interesting to most people is the top two investment institutions in terms of the number of "shots" - Qijichuangtang and Sinovation Ventures:

First, the founders of both companies are top experts in the computer field. Lu Qi and Kai-Fu Lee are brothers of Carnegie Mellon University. The computer department of this university has ranked first in the United States for many years, and is known as the "seminary" of computers;

Secondly, the two "big shots" are almost the "ceiling level" figures of Chinese in European and American technology companies, spanning the world's top technology companies such as Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft and holding high positions. Before Lu Qi retired from Microsoft, he had already started the research on the integration of artificial intelligence technology and Bing search. In the face of the advent of the era of the big model, the two companies frequently made moves, and Kai-Fu Lee personally stepped down to build a startup company of the big model, "One Thing".

Artificial intelligence, as a technological investment, has certain requirements for the accumulation of relevant personnel in investment institutions. Of course, based on the experience of most investors, venture capital, especially early investments, still needs to be "looking at people and teams".

In recent years, China's artificial intelligence industry has flourished, with accelerated infrastructure layout and deep expansion of integrated applications. The data released at the 2023 Artificial Intelligence Conference shows that currently, China's supercomputing, intelligent computing, and cloud computing are working together, with the scale of computing power ranking second in the world; The deep integration of artificial intelligence and manufacturing has led to the establishment of over 2500 digital workshops and intelligent factories, effectively promoting the transformation of the real economy into digitalization, intelligence, and greenery.

In the future, with the accelerated development of artificial intelligence, industry enterprises can accelerate the prosperity and development of the industrial ecosystem through system innovation and adherence to open source, and support the high-quality development of artificial intelligence with strong computing power.

Tianyancha Research Institute believes that in the short term, the popularity of artificial intelligence has certain benefits for startups to attract investors' attention and obtain financing at higher valuations. However, in the long run, the product capabilities of the invested enterprise and whether they can gain market recognition are important factors that affect whether investors will invest.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is sourced from the internet. The copyright of the text, images, and other materials belongs to the original author. The platform reprints the materials for the purpose of conveying more information. The content of the article is for reference and learning only, and should not be used for commercial purposes. If it infringes on your legitimate rights and interests, please contact us promptly and we will handle it as soon as possible! We respect copyright and are committed to protecting it. Thank you for sharing.(Email:[email protected])