Former Lenovo executives enter the consumer-grade drone, Xinjiang, add new rivals
When leaving Lenovo, Yang Wanli and Chen Wenhui's duties were fixed on the vice president of Lenovo Group.
As a result of being behind the scenes, the departure of the two did not seem to cause enough waves at that time. In contrast, the routine to replace Yang Wanli at that time may now be better known. After a short adjustment, the two eventually co-founded the "Pegasus Robot" in 2015: As their name suggests, the entrepreneurial field of the two is not in the mobile phone, but in the field of drones that seem to have nothing to do with the mobile phone.
Due to the large cross-border, this venture was even a bit strange at first. However, at the beginning of the establishment, the company unexpectedly got an angel round of 63 million yuan - in the field of hardware with huge capital requirements, this is equivalent to getting a good ticket.
After entering the game, it is a further entry. Yang Wanli told Tencent Technology that although the company was founded in 2015, it was not from scratch. In fact, the predecessor of Pegasus robot, Anxiang Power, was established in 2008 and participated in the rescue work of the Wenchuan earthquake. The founder of Anxiang Power, Zhu Xi, is a good friend of Chen Wenhui. Later, under the trade of Chen Wenhui, Anxiang Power, which focuses on industry-level applications, is included in the company. The new company Pegasus Robot also continues the advantage of Anxiang Power. The first industrial drone Pegasus F1000 was released and sold in the month.
Chen Wenhui
Yang Wanli
According to Pegasus data, the F1000, which has been selling for more than 100,000 yuan in half a year, has sold about 100 units; the upcoming iterative product F200 is said to have reached an agreement of about 100 units.
However, Yang Wanli said frankly that although he had sold industrial drones for more than a year, he was preparing to enter the consumer market from the beginning. In fact, after more than a year of research and development, Pegasus robots will soon touch this long-awaited cake: In November, Pegasus will release a consumer-grade drone product J.ME.
However, in the eyes of many practitioners, the cake in the second half of 2016 has already been less "good" than it used to be.
According to a previous report by Taber Think Tank, there were 81 financings in the global drone market in 2015, with a total financing of about 4 billion yuan. Among them, manufacturers from China took half of the financing amount; compared with 41 financings in the previous year. The number of financing funds of 1.5 billion yuan has undoubtedly reached its peak.
But by 2016, the heat has declined. In fact, a number of vendors that have attracted attention in 2015 have been in deep crisis: the main hand-held self-timer drone Zano parent company went bankrupt, and the main self-timer drone Lily unlimited jump ticket, while Intel’s capital-supplied Yuneec was once Questioning the fraud, the shipping date was dragged from the first half to September. Not only that, but the US 3DR company, which was once considered to be the industry's biggest competitor in the industry, is also completely out of the drone hardware market after a series of twists and turns.
The high-tech threshold of consumer-class drones is daunting. The advantage of the innovation industry in DJI, which is a first-in-command, seems to be quite solid, and the industry share is stable at around 70%.
But in the second half of the competition, some changes are happening quietly.
At the end of last month, Dajiang released the first self-timer folding drone Mavic, which sold for 6499 yuan. Before that, Zero Infinity and Zero Intelligence also released its similarly positioned products, Hover Camera Passport and Dobby. The industry believes that the entry of Dajiang will officially ignite the war of the small portable drone market, and its technical advantages will make the original small players as the enemy, of course, the attention brought by the giants will also bring the market to the market. Come to new opportunities.
Coincidentally, Yang Wanli and Chen Wenhui's company also chose this market at the beginning of the project last year; unfortunately, at least for now, Pegasus robots are not cheap in terms of technical reserves and start-up time.
Is this a lost game?Chen Wenhui does not think so. The accumulation of flight control algorithms and aircraft structural design that began in 2008 is still the technology that Pegasus is proud of. In Chen Wenhui's view, in these professional fields, the Pegasus, which has been developed in industrial drones, may not be as cheap as the giants like Dajiang, but the disadvantages of some core technologies are not as big as expected.
"The reason why the Pegasus robot is not a Pegasus drone is because the company's positioning began with robot-related deep learning and computer vision," said Yang Wanli. Deep learning AI and computer vision are not too useful in the early drone market, but they have become more important in the latest small portable drone market, such as the drone's follow-up to users. Such technologies are urgently needed for visual obstacle avoidance and the like.
According to reports, there are currently 200 Pegasus, of which 85% are R&D personnel, and AI is the top priority of Pegasus R&D.
This directional overlap is undoubtedly a major reason for Pegasus to enter the small portable market, but Pegasus seems to have a "backhand". This has to mention the Pegasus partner MediaTek (MTK).
Yang Wanli told Tencent Technology that she was leading the design and trading Lenovo A60 mobile phone when she was still at Lenovo Mobile. This mobile phone is the result of the strategic cooperation between Lenovo and MediaTek. The price segment close to the thousand yuan is the most prominent differentiation advantage. Lenovo allegedly relies on this mobile phone to share the smartphone share from less than 1%. It quickly increased to 11% within six months.
In the field of drones, there may be such a similar opportunity on the eve of the high integration of components.
Yang Wanli told Tencent Technology that even Dajiang used a separate solution. "The upstream chip factory had not had obvious action because the amount of drones was not large enough, but this trend may be changed." In the end, the discrete program will inevitably be abandoned, and drone manufacturers should embrace this change in advance.
After thinking about this direction, Yang Wanli found the former partner MediaTek. In November last year, the Pegasus robot, which was rarely heard, once again cooperated with MediaTek to build a highly integrated integrated consumer drone based on the smart chip solution. Since then, the project has entered a long period of silence. And the upcoming J.ME will show its results for the first time.
At the same time, Pegasus also announced that it completed the A round of financing on the eve of the release of J.ME.
The support of capital, the help of the upstream MediaTek and the years of accumulation in the industrial drone field seem to be a good card. Yang Wanli said that J.ME will have a good price/performance ratio, and mobile phone remote control will also be a feature. In the consumer market, Pegasus hopes to compete with Dajiang. However, "positioning the people, does not mean that the safety and technical requirements are low, but the product safety and reliability requirements are higher," added Yang Wanli.
But the anxiety is still hanging on Yang Wanli's face.
After all, in front of Pegasus is a giant like Dajiang, and a series of entrants. In the drone market, there are still a lot of variables in the future of Pegasus, and the entire industry may also be ushered in a short period of time - this may be related to the fate of all the invaders.
Dongguan Zhonghe Electronics Co., Ltd. , https://www.zhonghesleeving.com