On March 7, Geling Shentong officially launched the subscription, with the issue price of 39.49 yuan / share and the online subscription code of 78720700 yuan According to the issuing price and the number of new shares issued this time, it is expected to raise 1 billion yuan. After deducting the issuance expenses, the net amount of funds raised is expected to be about 1.67 billion yuan, 670 million more than the original plan.
Like the AI four dragons, Geling Shentong focuses on the field of computer vision. After many trials and errors in retail, transportation, finance and other application scenarios, it has passed the business model in the field of urban management related to security scenarios, but it is also facing the same profit dilemma as other AI enterprises.
Zhao Yong, chairman and general manager of Ge lingshentong, told the reporter of the science and Innovation Board daily during the online roadshow: at present, the main problem facing the AI industry is that the landing scene is relatively single, concentrated in the field of urban management, and the competition is relatively fierce , the company has been exploring the application of multiple scenes downstream of AI. At present, the proportion of income in urban management field is decreasing year by year. In the future, R & D and innovation will continue mainly in the above new application scenarios .
In addition to the AI four little dragons, the comparable companies in the industry of Geling Shentong also include Hangzhou Arcvideo Technology Co.Ltd(688039) , Arcsoft Corporation Limited(688088) and other listed companies on the science and innovation board, and there is a certain gap in the scale of revenue.
how to break through the red sea of AI security
From the rise of deep learning in 2012, which ignited the spark of the AI wave, to the success of alphago in 2016, it blew the east wind of the AI industry. In those years, many AI start-ups were established one after another, with a halo of high technology on their heads, attracting a large influx of capital. Geling deep pupil is also one of them.
Zhao Yong, one of the founders of Geling Shentong, was a senior researcher at the Research Institute of Google headquarters and the earliest core R & D member of Google glass. Therefore, from 2013 to 2014, which was just founded, Geling Shentong attracted investments from Sequoia China, ceyuan venture capital, Zhenge fund and other well-known institutions. Today, these early investors are still among the top shareholders of Geling Shentong.
Among them, Sequoia Capital holds 19.4 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of 13.99%, ranking the second largest shareholder. Ceyuan venture capital and Zhenge Fund I are the third and fourth largest shareholders, holding 13.85 million shares and 11.08 million shares respectively, with a shareholding ratio of 9.99% and 7.99%. In addition, the overall shareholding ratio of Zhenge fund reached 8.43%.
An insider told reporters that the development dilemma of pure AI company is that although it holds advanced technology, it does not know where to land. This is also known as “looking for nails with a hammer”, that is, using AI technology to find application scenarios .
This is particularly evident in Geling’s deep pupil. In the early stage of its establishment, after experiencing the obstacles in the landing of retail, transportation, finance and other fields, Geling Shentong found a breakthrough in the urban management and security of AI four dragons.
In the words of a former AI four dragons employee, “Geling deep pupil is also a successful transformation.”
According to the prospectus, the revenue of Geling Shentong mainly comes from urban management, smart finance and commercial retail. Among them, urban management accounted for 79.30%, 51.73%, 51.50% and 66.17% of the company’s revenue from 2018 to 2020 and January to June 2021.
In China, the field of urban management and governance related to security is the earliest commercial landing track of AI. Today, it is still one of the main tracks with the largest market capacity of AI landing. However, due to many competitors, it seems to have become a red sea.
As Zhao Yong said: at present, the main problem facing the AI industry is that the landing scene is relatively single, concentrated in the field of urban management, and the competition is relatively fierce.
In addition to the competition among AI enterprises, Geling Shentong is also facing the market pressure of traditional industry leading enterprises and large equipment suppliers Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.Ltd(002415) , Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co.Ltd(002236) and other leading hardware enterprises, as well as large ICT integrated manufacturers represented by Huawei, have also joined the competition.
According to IDC report, the size of computer vision market in 2020 is US $1.66 billion. Among them, Shangtang technology, Kuangshi technology, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co.Ltd(002415) , Yuncong technology and Yitu technology ranked the top five, and Dahua Technology ranked the eighth. The glaring deep pupil is classified among others.
ai hardware revenue continues to grow
Zhao Yong believes that compared with other AI companies, the company’s technical advantages are mainly reflected in three-dimensional stereo vision technology.
It is reported that Zhao Yong himself, as an expert in the field of 3D vision technology, has developed haomu behavior analyzer and other related products based on this technology, which have been applied in the fields of smart finance, rail transit operation and maintenance, sports health and so on.
From the prospectus, ai software and hardware integrated products, including haomu behavior analyzer, edge computing equipment, deep pupil huimu camera, face recognition equipment and dual light temperature measurement intelligent recognition equipment, have gradually become the core revenue source of Geling deep pupil. Its revenue proportion increased from 17.65% in 2018 to 69.71% in 2020 .
In fact, this is also the commercialization direction that many AI enterprises are expanding. Yuncong technology once said frankly in reply to the inquiry, under the current artificial intelligence market environment, downstream customers tend to purchase hardware or integrated software and hardware products . Some brokerage analysts also pointed out that from the perspective of commercialization, end-to-end solutions integrating software and hardware are more popular in the market than pure AI services.
develop smart finance, rail transit operation and maintenance and other new fields
In recent years, Geling Shentong has actively expanded smart finance, commercial retail, rail transit operation and maintenance, sports health and other fields 2021, the company expects the operating revenue to be about 270310 million, and the revenue growth mainly comes from the field of smart finance
According to the disclosure of the prospectus, in March 2021, the company was shortlisted for Agricultural Bank Of China Limited(601288) 2020 security equipment project, and the sales revenue increased rapidly, which is expected to exceed 100 million yuan, which is the main source of revenue growth in the financial field. In 2021, the net profit deducted from non parent company is expected to be about – 80 ~ – 65 million yuan, and the loss is narrower than that of the previous year.
It is worth mentioning that from 2018 to 2020, the net cash flow from operating activities of Geling Shentong was – 110 million yuan, – 110 million yuan and 35.08 million yuan respectively. The company has successfully realized the transformation of operating cash flow from negative to positive in 2020. If the commercialization of new fields is implemented smoothly, it may turn losses into profits in the future.
Sports health and rail transit operation and maintenance, as the two major innovation areas of Geling Shentong, are also the key R & D projects invested by the raised funds.
Among them, the rail transit operation and maintenance solution supports the fault diagnosis tasks of a variety of motor vehicles, high-speed railways and subway models, covering more than 30 kinds of fault detection and more than 15000 checkpoints. It has established a partnership with CRRC electric and started a pilot in metro operation and maintenance projects such as Ningbo and Wuxi.
Sports health solutions are mainly used in campus physical education, fitness guidance and rehabilitation evaluation. Through the capture and analysis of human body movements and the comparison of similarity and standard with the movements of professional athletes, we can provide personalized, scientific and systematic fitness suggestions and rehabilitation guidance for physical training at present, it has established a long-term cooperative relationship with Capital Institute of physical education. Zhao Yong, the founder of the company, has been the chief scientist of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of Capital Institute of physical education since 2019
With the continuous development of artificial intelligence industry, AI has gradually faded the halo of “black technology”. For AI enterprises such as Geling Shentong, the key to winning the future is how to deeply integrate with more industries, build application solutions in different scenarios, and enable the technology to realize and truly bring value in the industry.
