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On April 9, Yifei Intelligent Control (Tianjin) Technology Co., Ltd. (Yifei) announced the completion of an "A+" round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan. This financing was led by AVIC Trust Holdings Co., Ltd.

Previously, Yifei has received investment from several well-known domestic capitals. This strategic financing from AVIC Capital not only marks Yifei's official promotion to the national team, but also is the first major event at the national level to participate in and invest in the field of drones. The industry will be redefined and reshuffled.

Yifei's core team has been accumulating core technologies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2004, and was the first in China to propose the concept of building a "brain" for drones. After achieving the first application of many domestic commercial drones, it was officially established in Tianjin Development Zone in 2015.

Less than three years after its establishment, AVIC took the initiative to endorse Yifei. What is the business logic behind Yifei? After riding the super-light trend, where will companies choose their next battlefield?

The consumer-grade stock market is a red ocean, and the Matthew effect is obvious

According to application fields, drones can be divided into three categories: military, commercial and civilian consumer. The initial outbreak of DJI kicked off the battle in the consumer market.

There are two "small" things that can give us a glimpse of the situation: First, many TMT giants have begun to get involved in the drone business, such as Qualcomm, Intel, Baidu, Xiaomi, Tencent and other companies have invested in or established their own drone R&D centers in recent years; second, Internet elites and teams within the industry system have left their jobs to start businesses. For example, former Lenovo executive Chen Wenhui founded Pegasus, and Qi Juntong, a former post-80s doctoral supervisor from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also officially jumped out of the system in 2015 to establish Yifei.

There are many entrepreneurs going overseas, but what they need to be vigilant about is that the existing market is an important indicator that determines the current survival space of enterprises. As giant monopolies appear in the consumer market, start-up companies must first solve the most important issue of life and death - financing.

According to the latest statistics released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, from January to August 2017, there were 16 financing companies in my country's drone industry for a total of 17 times, and a total of approximately 520 million yuan in financing was obtained. Among them, 8 companies were not funded for the first time.

In other words, start-up teams are no longer favored by capital parties. The era when "a good story + a cool PPT + a team with a good background" can raise a lot of money is over.

In fact, it is not only difficult for start-ups to raise funds, but also for some established companies to escape the black hole of lack of money. In the last month of 2016, two well-known companies announced layoffs of more than 100 people, causing an uproar in the industry.

From 2015 to the present, capital forces have tightened their purse strings on drone entrepreneurial projects, and consumer drones have faced the pressure of both capital and market.

Investment and industry experts generally believe that after the consumer market has been over-consumption, the market growth rate that squeezed out the bubble has gradually slowed down, and the Matthew Effect will be present in the long term.

The commercial-level incremental market continues to accelerate, giving birth to industry unicorns

On March 14, Zhu Tao, deputy director of the Flight Standardization Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, disclosed at a press conference in Beijing that drones are extending from the traditional aviation field to all fields of society, and are gradually transforming from entertainment flying equipment into a new form of production tool involving various industries.

From toys to tools, although the word is different, the market prospect is almost "half sea water, half fire". Unlike the consumer market, the commercial industry chain is very long. From the perspective of enterprise division of labor, it includes flight control systems, complete machine suppliers, electronic control development, big data solution developers, etc.; from the perspective of application fields, it also includes agricultural plant protection, power inspection, logistics and distribution, etc. The market prospects of many subdivided fields exceed 10 billion yuan.

Taking the agricultural market as an example, the number of plant protection drones installed nationwide has reached nearly 10,000, but the number of agricultural aircraft owned in my country only accounts for about 0.13% of the total number of agricultural aircraft in the world; the agricultural aviation operation area accounts for 1.70% of the cultivated land area, and the market size has reached 100 billion yuan.

Yifei founder Qi Juntong said frankly that although the plant protection industry looks beautiful, the drone market still has a clear barrel effect. "The shortest board determines the overall level of the industry."

Taking battery life as an example, electric multi-rotor drones generally only have a flight time of about fifteen minutes. If they are used for plant protection, they have to carry heavy chemicals and batteries. In fact, flying for ten minutes is considered a qualified level.

Automatic detection and matching of terrain, automatic detection and classification of obstacles, real-time re-planning of spray paths, centimeter-level positioning and control, and various technical barriers have resulted in many companies in the industry gathering in the lower reaches of the industry chain, relying on buying parts and hoarding machines to survive. The phenomenon of entry and exit occurs almost every day. Only a small number of companies that are able to develop and produce core hardware such as flight control systems and electronic control systems and are in the upper reaches of the industrial chain have the possibility to develop and grow.

Yifei, who is "not short of money", is obviously in the latter category. Since 2004, Yifei's core team has been developing drones in China, and has been rated as "China's only and the world's top ten most influential flying robot R&D and application teams" by the world's authoritative journal "Journal of Field Robotics" in the field of robotics. In 2015, Yifei was officially established, and Qi Juntong chose the flight control brain as the entry point. After establishing a foothold in the field of plant protection, the company began to make full efforts in the upstream and downstream chains of commercial drones.