At present, the capital invested in the robot industry can be roughly divided into three categories: government capital, market-oriented venture capital institutions and listed companies. In addition, some institutions that follow the trend in the investment industry are indeed the embodiment of the partial bubble. Â
Invested in the gold, the local bubble in China's robot industry is looming
As the country has supported robots as a strategic emerging industry, the robot industry has attracted a lot of attention in a short period of time. Capital investment in the robot industry has been rising from last year to this year.
Xin Guobin, deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, once admitted that there is a worry about over-investment in China's robot industry. The robot industry needs to avoid blind expansion and low-level redundant construction.
Service robots are sought after by venture capital
At present, the application market of industrial robots is the most mature, but there are concerns that core components need to rely on imports. Service robots are a hot spot in the capital world this year, but it is difficult to see explosive products. Special robots are mainly used in military, environmental protection, public security and other sub-sectors. Due to the government or military background, domestic companies have more competitive advantages than overseas companies.
Lianchuang Investment and Harbin Institute of Technology Robotics Group jointly established a 3 billion-scale robotic industry investment fund, and began a systematic investment in the robotics field from 2016. Wang Yuhang, senior vice president of Lianchuang Investment, said that companies in the field of industrial robots generally have clear products and mature business models, and the realization is relatively fast. But the drawback is that the industry is too mature and the competition is fierce. It is actually the process of big waves to choose the best enterprise investment from a large number of homogeneous ontology manufacturers.
"At this stage, the core components of China's high-end industrial robots still rely mainly on imports. The high-end market of servos, reducers and controllers is monopolized by foreign countries. For example, reducer products are mainly controlled by Japanese manufacturers such as Nabo and Sumitomo, and domestic products are in precision. The stability, life and other aspects have a big gap compared with imported products, and the reducer has occupied more than 30% of the cost of robots in China." Li Wenran, chief analyst of the robotic plate of Sui and Tang Dynasties Research Institute of Sui Tang Capital, said.
Due to the attractive market for 2C, it is easy to form an outbreak in a short period of time, and service robots are most favored by venture capital institutions.
Qi Guantai, a partner of Qiming Venture Partners, said that the components inside the toy robot do not need to be as sophisticated as industrial robots, and the price is more in line with market demand, so Qiming made an investment in this area. Enlightened companion robot Qiming is also concerned, but has not found a suitable target.
Wang Yuhang believes that there are a large number of children, young people and the elderly under China's huge population base. This allows service robots such as helpless robots and educational robots to have huge market demand. But the problem with this market is that there are not many mature products that can really solve the pain points. It may be that in addition to sweeping robots, people can't think of too many products that can be called “phenomenon levelâ€.
The segmentation market of special robots is also the focus of venture capital institutions. Wang Yuhang said that most of the robot customers have government and military backgrounds. If the orders can be taken down, the amount is usually large and the duration is long, which will bring stable revenue growth expectations to the company. But on the other hand, the process of taking orders will be a long and tortuous one, and it is not easy to form an outbreak.
Partial bubble looming
At present, the capital invested in the robot industry can be roughly divided into three categories: government capital such as Guoxin Fund, market-oriented venture capital institutions such as Qiming Venture Capital, Qualcomm Venture Capital, and Lianchuang Investment, and listed companies such as Midea and Foxconn.
When the national guiding policies are implemented in the localities, there will be corresponding industrial parks, industrial support policies and guiding funds. After the completion of the industrial park, it is hoped that as many robot companies as possible will be recruited. Some enterprises will follow the trend to do some shoddy robots to receive subsidies or take external investment. There are also some institutions that follow the trend in the investment industry, which is indeed the embodiment of the partial bubble.
“A very popular industry has attracted a lot of attention in a short time, but there are not enough excellent targets to invest, resulting in a large amount of money can only be relegated to the next, to vote for some less good projects. Then hope for the theory of the vent I hope that after the industry has risen, I will share a piece of it," Wang Yuhang said.
However, Wang Yuhang said that capital investment is not overheated in the real core value. Ye Guantai also said that from the perspective of market demand, China's robot investment is not excessive. Many European and American countries have a 30% automation rate, while China has less than 10%, and there is still much room for development.
"Now large funds such as IDG and Sequoia will use their own TMT funds to invest in robots. There is a consensus that robots will have great investment opportunities in the next decade, especially in service robots." Wang Yuhang said.
Ye Guantai said that because the robot field is relatively new, there are actually not many institutions that specialize in robots. "Everyone will try to invest in one or two projects, but they don't dare to focus on this, because it has a long cycle, and capital needs to have a relatively stable return, and there is no risk."
For listed companies, investment robots mainly consider the synergistic value of other business of the company, as well as improve their own automation capabilities and production efficiency.
Li Wenran said that listed companies can be divided into two types of investment robots. One is Midea, TCL, Foxconn and other companies. On the one hand, robots can help them reduce their business costs through machine generation, and on the other hand, they can expand their business types to find new profit growth. point.
The other type is the Harbin Institute of Technology, which understands robotics and knows which are the key points of the industry's development. What the company can do at this stage. Then, from the perspective of complementing the shortcomings of the entire industry chain, it is beneficial to reduce the cost of the national robot industry by investing in mergers and acquisitions.
From the core technology purchased from overseas to the domestic enterprise application, to achieve leap-forward development, it is more common in semiconductor, clean energy technology and other industries. In the field of robotics, there are also cases of the US acquisition of KUKA.
However, Li Wenran believes that overtaking in corners is not so easy to achieve in the industrial field. "Some technologies are not sold abroad. Under the premise of technical blockade, we must do a little research and development. There are still some technologies that we can buy, and there are also problems in the ability to absorb and absorb new technologies," he said.
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