Looking at the investment in supporting the new infrastructure today, I think our biggest opportunity and the greatest potential is to transform and upgrade the manufacturing industry, making the manufacturing industry intelligent and networked, so that machines can coordinate their work.

Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Triumph Ventures” (ID: keytonevc) , Author: Triumph Ventures.

In 2020, “new infrastructure” has become a word that everyone has repeatedly mentioned, officially standing on the upper hand, and has won many governments, industries, entrepreneurs, and investment institutions from all over the world. s concern.

Including 5G infrastructure, UHV, intercity high-speed railway and urban rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, etc. The new infrastructure and the traditional infrastructure have different cores. So, where is the “new” of the new infrastructure, and what is the essence of the new infrastructure? What advantages do we have and what new opportunities and challenges will we encounter?

Recently, Mr. Zhou Zhixiong, founding partner of Triumph Ventures, “focused on new infrastructure investment outlets” at the “2020 Qingdao Global Venture Capital Network Conference” On the topic, I shared some of my views and experiences. This article is organized and supplemented by this speech.

Zhou Zhixiong, founding partner of Triumph Ventures

Proactive attack, new infrastructure reflects national strategic vision

What does the” new “of the new infrastructure reflect? This question requires us to look back and see what the corresponding” traditional infrastructure “is.

In 2008, the financial crisis caused by the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in an all-round way. China ’s exports have turned sharply and the economic growth rate has fallen rapidly. In order to respond to the crisis, the Chinese government launched infrastructure investment The 4 trillion fiscal stimulus plan that spurs economic growth has led to the launch of a large number of projects for the traditional infrastructure “Tie Gongji” and the expansion of the capacity of various local leading enterprises.

It can be said that traditional infrastructure is a passive choice for China in the face of crisis, with the goal of stimulating GDP and realizing investment-driven high-speed economic growth. It also brought about negative effects such as overcapacity, excessive dependence on real estate, and high leverage.

The new infrastructure is different. It was born at the end of 2018. It is the new pressure vigorously promoted by the Chinese government under the pressure of the Chinese economy itself and the global economic crisis caused by the new coronavirus epidemic. Fiscal stimulus.

The new infrastructure is focused on the technology side, which not only can promote economic growth in the short term, but also solves the problem of promoting technological growth, optimizing the industrial chain, and remanufacturing manufacturing In order to consolidate the leading position of advantageous industries, lay out strategic emerging industries, and improve the infrastructure construction required for productivity, there is more strategic thinking, which means to actively choose the direction of development and take the initiative to attack.

After nearly 20 years of rapid development in China ’s economy, there are two core issues that need to be resolved: first,The core technology development is lacking, the midstream and downstream industries are developed, and the upstream industry is lacking. In the context of gaming and de-globalization in this field by major powers, the midstream and downstream industries are likely to be severely restricted. The most typical is China’s chip industry. There is still a large gap in the upstream.

Secondly, although the manufacturing industry has gradually developed towards the middle and upper reaches, it is still mostly labor-intensive industries, and the added value of products is low. The previous large-scale low-price strategy is not only easy Being crowned with a “dumping” hat abroad, its own production efficiency has reached a bottleneck. The manufacturing industry needs to be transformed on a large scale to give new momentum.

“filling the gap” and “improving efficiency”, the new infrastructure is a breakthrough to solve these two problems.

Not only that, The proposal of the new infrastructure is more forward-looking layout, focusing on development and future, and is highly strategic. The country ’s emphasis on the new infrastructure has made me extremely excited. Over the past decade, great progress has been made in consuming the Internet. It has played an important role in accelerating the circulation of money and things, but its contribution to productivity changes is limited. of.

Only technology can really promote the development of productivity. The new infrastructure is precisely “good steel is used on the blade”. I believe that the implementation of the new infrastructure will serve China ’s future ten. Years, and even 20 years of development have laid a solid foundation.

The time is right and the people are harmonious, and the capital environment is gradually improving

There is firm confidence in this because of several reasons.

First of all, China has achieved a great advantage in traditional infrastructure. What we often sigh when discussing with foreign investors is infrastructure. The level of infrastructure in the United States is relatively old, unchanged for decades, such as rail transit. The distance from Beijing to Jinan is about the same as the distance from New York to Washington. Our high-speed rail is an hour and fifty minutes, and the fastest Amtrak Acela in the United States is three and a half hours. In addition, China’s airports are the latest and most modern, and China’s highway construction is also the world’s first.

Second, In the long-term development, we have formed a relatively complete mid- and downstream industry chain. From idea to realization, new products can always quickly get prototypes, find supporting equipment and manufacturers, arrange mass production in a short time, and iterate quickly. Even in Silicon Valley, where the American system is well established, such efficiency is unmatched. In addition, the large application market is also a big advantage.

Another one is the strength of talent. China ’s 2019 graduates have exceeded 8 million, of which about 70% of the graduates are in science and engineering, plus the return of overseas students to employment, to a certain extent can meet the needs of technical development for technical talents.

Finally, there is of course an indispensable part, Power in the capital field . I worked as a VC in 1999, and now I have been insisting on investing in high-tech fields. I have a deep feeling.

In the past, the domestic capital market only focused on the amount of corporate profits, and the core indicators of the long-term value of the enterprise have been indistinguishable and unconcerned. Foreign capital markets are more concerned about rapid growth, so for a long time in the past, consumer Internet has been the darling of US dollar funds. On the contrary, the development of core technology is a very unpopular thing. It takes a long time and requires a large amount of capital. The returns in the capital market are not outstanding.

So, companies that previously invested in ToB and technology types are under great pressure. In the past two decades, China ’s capital market has focused on the assessment of corporate profits.The industry cannot be listed without realizing profits, and the capital market cannot achieve the support for the listing and exit of innovation and technology R & D enterprises.

But last year, with the birth of the science and technology board, this situation has completely changed. The Science and Technology Board requires listed companies to have sufficient scientific and technological content, and requires companies to master core technologies. They are leading companies in related industries and have sufficient R & D investment to ensure technological innovation. At the same time, it also allows companies to go public without profit, supports the development of high-tech enterprises, solves the problem of investor exits, and forms a complete closed loop for investors’ financial investment management exit. This is particularly delighted by our technology-focused investors.

Today, we can see that the entire investment industry is focusing on the To B industry and high-tech companies. This is a very good phenomenon for China’s economic development.

investors See the industrial dividend brought by the new infrastructure

Under the new infrastructure concept, the country undertakes major infrastructure investment tasks, including 5G infrastructure, UHV, and technology, science and education, and other infrastructure to support production, research, and technology development. For investment institutions like us, there are also numerous investment opportunities.

Look at the investment in supporting new infrastructure today, I think our biggest opportunity and the biggest potential is to transform and upgrade the manufacturing industry, making the manufacturing industry intelligent and networked, so that machines can coordinate their work with each other.

Including how to use 5G to solve the problem of how to communicate between machines, including how to reason about machines, how to learn independently, how to solve problems by themselves, how to work autonomously with the least human intervention, and so on. Therefore, I think there are several areas of investment that deserve attention, and these are the areas that Triumph Ventures will focus on:

One is related to the core technologies and products in the two directions of “compensating shortcomings” and “improving efficiency”, such as: AI chips, special chips for vertical professional scenes, sensors, communications The domestic replacement of chips and core components including semiconductor lasers and power high-voltage components may be a big opportunity.

The second is the opportunity brought about by the cloud computing sector represented by the reshaping of the IT industry structure. We pay particular attention to the software part, such as cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence platform software and application solutions in various industries. China ’s traditional strengths are in hardware. Under the new market environment, there will definitely be big opportunities for platform software and application industry software, and there will be new software head companies.

Finally, under the technological advancement, new opportunities generated by new application scenarios may be unprecedented and the world ’s leading. For example, sensors, robots, machine learning, etc. involved in the industrial Internet field, with them, industrial production will be highly intelligent, no longer rely on human participation, can be uninterrupted 24 hours, can be in high temperature and high pressure human body Working in an unbearable environment, you can optimize yourself and continue to improve, and industrial efficiency will be greatly improved.

The new era of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs face unprecedented Challenge

From a macro perspective, the economic three Under the influence of the globalization of the carriage and the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, exports and consumption have been greatly affected. It will take some time to recover, and investment has become the only direction.

The “new infrastructure” is not only for the future intelligent and digital preparations, and to release the potential for economic growth, but also for the actual needs of the current global economic depression and the weak domestic economy.

Driven by the demand for “new infrastructure” construction, a large number of technology entrepreneurs and technology innovation companies will also usher in a window of development. But at the same time, the requirements for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial teams are also more stringent.

Unlike the consumer Internet era, having good ideas, sufficient funds and good execution (and good luck) can create a unicorn. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in the technology field must have a deep industry To accumulate, it is necessary to master core technology, to be able to build a sufficiently high moat, to be able to finance, and to be able to obtain high-quality industrial resources. To do this must require a relatively complete team of entrepreneurs. In this way, it is possible to become a head company in related fields.

From the perspective of entrepreneurship, cross-industry, integrated entrepreneurship projects will have more opportunities to create new application scenarios, new markets, and become the head company in the new application scenarios.


About Triumph Ventures

Triumph Ventures was established in 2008, is a high-tech venture capital institution, dedicated to finding high-potential technology companies in the early, middle and growth stages, in strategic emerging industries In the major fields of Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, intelligent hardware, cloud, big data, advanced medical care, etc., we continue to explore investment opportunities. The portfolio includes Sea, Huifutianxia, ​​Derby Software, Silicon Valley Digital Analog, Dali Technology, Chianxin, Magic Vision Smart, Wayz.AI, Cool Cloud Interactive, mCube, Moffett AI and many other excellent startups.