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Article/Hernanderz
Source: (ID: jiazhiyanjiusuo)
In recent years, the robot industry, which has seen a lot of success, has suffered a lot in recent years.
At the beginning of July, Purdue Technology, the head manufacturer of food delivery robot, was severely laid off, accounting for up to 30%. This is only one of the four rounds of layoffs of Purdue Technology since December last year. Earlier, another meal delivery robot company, Hunter Star, was also burned out by 1 billion yuan, senior executives were cut off from pay, and all business lines started to cut jobs
The food delivery robot industry standing at the tuyere has taken this step today, and many problems are early warning.
Take Purdue Technology as an example. The crazy expansion foreshadows today's tragedy. In the past year, Purdue Technology has expanded its product line and launched a number of new products intensively, while stepping up its sea going and sinking, and the size of its sales team has expanded tenfold. Now, a large number of promotion and sales personnel recruited to serve logistics and warehousing facilities at sea and to enter the sinking market have been transformed into heavy cost pressure.
At the same time, the always generous capital also began to re-examine its investment strategy. The investment environment is deteriorating, and the investment territory of Meituan and Ali is shrinking. They are unwilling to transfuse blood indefinitely for these unprofitable unicorns.
Layoffs can save money, but open source is the more important issue. In the face of the market's doubts about the practicability and cost performance of the meal delivery robot, have Purdue Technologies found a way to disassemble it?
Blind expansion buried the root of the disaster, popularizing technology to "slim down" in winter
It only took Purdue Technology one year from crazy expansion to downsizing.
Recently, the news of the layoff of Purdue Technology was revealed in the gathering place of the employees of the large factory. According to people familiar with the situation, Purdue began to continue layoffs at the beginning of this year, and recently increased layoffs. Nearly 30% of its employees have been laid off in succession, with the sales department and newly recruited new graduates bearing the brunt.
According to other media reports, Purdue Technology has completed four rounds of layoffs since December last year, involving business lines in more than 20 cities. Public information shows that the total number of employees of Purdue Technology last year was nearly 3000. However, according to the information on the pulse, the number will drop to 500 after July, which shows that layoffs are indeed not the first time.
Purdue Technology did not make an official response to relevant rumors, but a widely circulated internal letter revealed the plight of the star unicorn.
Zhang Tao, founder and CEO of Purdue Technology, issued a letter to all employees in the early morning of July 4, admitting that personnel adjustment was under way, and said that this was a problem the company had to face.
"After a long discussion, we had to make a difficult decision to slim down the company's business and team in order to keep the company alive."
Pudu Technology, standing in the air, has become the protagonist in the news of layoffs, which surprised many Internet users. According to the information searched by the Value Research Institute (ID: jiazhiyanjiusuo), Purdue Technology has been an absolute capital darling in the past few years. So far, it has completed seven rounds of financing, with the market valuation up to 10 billion yuan. At first glance, there is not much capital pressure.
Tianyancha information shows that Purdue Technology completed the C and C+rounds of financing in May and September last year, led by Tencent and Meituan respectively, and the total amount of the two rounds of financing reached 1 billion yuan. From the perspective of financing history, Meituan and Sequoia China can be rated as the largest Bole of Purdue. The former has successively participated in five rounds of financing, while the latter has continuously participated in the last three rounds of financing.
However, there must be some problems in the operation of Purdue Technology when the actual layoffs are in front of us.
What's the problem? Expansion is perhaps the best answer.
Like most start-ups, Purdue Technology also started its crazy expansion journey after obtaining huge financing.
On the one hand, it is the continuous expansion of the product line, from the traditional food delivery robot to the quadruped robot and other new fields.
At the spring new product launch in March this year, Purdue Technology launched four new products at one go, namely Qiaole Song, PUDU A1, PIDU D1 and PUDU SH1. In addition to the standard mechanical arm, Purdue has also injected stronger AI attributes into these new products. At the press conference, CEO Zhang Tao also revealed Purdue Technology's greater ambition and plans to penetrate into the industrial service field.
"Purdue Technology not only releases several new products, but also hopes to bring solutions to the whole industry."
On the other hand, Purdue is also actively expanding into sinking markets and overseas markets.
Official data shows that so far, Purdue's products have been exported to more than 60 countries and regions, focusing on North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. In China, Purdue has also stepped out of the first tier and new first tier cities and actively sought new customers from the third tier and lower level sinking markets.
Under the large-scale expansion, the market share of Purdue Technology has certainly increased significantly. According to the data, Purdue Technology accounts for more than 90% of China's food delivery robot products exported overseas, which can be said to be a threat to all powerful enemies.
However, all of this comes at a price—— Logistics, warehousing and other supporting facilities for sea going services, and a large number of sales and promotion personnel recruited to enter the sinking market have all turned into heavy cost pressure.
Take the sales team as an example. Media revelations show that the team members will expand nearly tenfold between 2020-2021. Correspondingly, the sales team has also become a disaster area for this round of layoffs. All these phenomena indicate that Purdue Technology needs to pay for its blind expansion in the past.
More worrisome is that similar situations are not only found in Purdue Technology.
The food delivery robot held by the capital, the unicorn can only burn money to carry it?
It must be affirmed that in the past few years, the robot industry has always been the darling of the primary financing market, and many star unicorns have been bred in the fields of industrial robots, household robots and commercial service robots.
According to the statistics of Tianyancha, there are more than 400000 robot enterprises in China at present, and more than 110000 will be added in 2021, with the fastest growth rate over the years. Taking the food delivery robot track of Purdue Science and Technology Institute as an example, after 2017, there were more than 150 investment and financing events for three consecutive years, and the total amount of financing in 2018 was up to 31.898 billion.
As early as 2020, some media have called Purdue Technology, Qinglang Intelligence, Orion Star and Pangolin Robot the "Four Little Celestial Kings" in the catering robot industry. In addition to today's leading player Purdue Technology, several other leading players have also received multiple rounds of financing in the past few years, and also reaped most of the market share.
According to the latest report of IDC, Qinglang Smart and Purdue Technology have the top two market shares, with market share of 48.6% and 25.9% respectively, opening a big gap with their competitors. However, from the perspective of growth rate, pangolin and Orion starry sky are no inferior, and the latter's flagship product, "Zhaocaibao" food delivery robot, enjoys good reputation in the industry.
However, like Purdue Technology, these leading manufacturers also encounter different levels of operational difficulties.
In March this year, like Zhang Tao, Fu Sheng, Chairman of Orion Star, responded to the outside world's doubts about the company's layoffs, salary suspension of senior executives and serious losses with an open letter of nearly 3000 words. The pangolin robot, the longest established robot, was listed on the NEEQ in 2017, but was delisted in 2020. According to the financial report before delisting, pangolin has been in a loss state for three years since its listing, with a cumulative loss of nearly 30 million yuan for three years.
It is a recognized fact that the robot industry is burning a lot of money. As the protagonists of the game, Purdue Technologies cannot be unaware of their own situation.
Especially in the early stage of exploration, the laser radar, depth camera and other parts are all imported, and the algorithm, AI and other technologies are not mature, which requires huge costs in research and development. Originally, with the rise of self owned brands such as Hesai Technology and Obi Zhongguang, the localization of core parts and components has improved. Unfortunately, the supply chain crisis in the last two years has brought new troubles.
In the view of the Institute of Value (ID: jiazhiyanjiusuo), The reason why such unicorns as Purdue Technology burn money to expand and shoulder losses at the same time has a lot to do with the admission of capital.
As mentioned above, a large amount of hot money poured in after 2017, providing sufficient ammunition for start-ups. The capital is not betting on the current profits but on the future potential, so Purdue Technology and Qinglang Intelligence need to continue to expand and compete for market share to achieve the purpose of improving valuation.
Capital wants to fight for a future. Unicorn people need funds to maintain current operation and technology research and development. Both sides originally take what they want.
But now, the situation is different. Under the catalysis of the unmanned distribution, Internet giants led by Meituan, Ali, Tencent and Baidu have also stepped down to develop commercial service robots in person, reducing their willingness to acquire and invest. At the same time, the investment environment is deteriorating, and the investment territory of Meituan and Ali is shrinking. Naturally, they will not transfuse blood indefinitely for these unprofitable unicorns.
In other words, Purdue Technology may have realized that it can only extricate itself from the current difficulties.
When an enterprise encounters difficulties in operation, open source and throttling are the two most basic principles. Today, Purdue Technology can only take the first step to save itself by reducing its costs through layoffs and shrinking its business. This second step is the most critical one: to find business growth opportunities on the basis of existing personnel and resources.
Only when the sales volume of products increases, the revenue will increase, and the company can obtain sufficient operating funds to put everything back on track.
This is a simple truth, but not everyone can easily do it.
Food delivery robot wants to be popularized, but cost performance and practicability are big problems
There is no doubt that the market size of food delivery robot is still in the growth period, but the growth rate seems not as prominent as expected.
According to the statistics of NCBD, 2018-2020 is a period of rapid growth for the domestic food delivery robot industry. The market size has exploded from 50 million to 1.16 billion, with year-on-year growth rates of 150%, 340% and 427% respectively. However, after 2020, the market growth rate declined significantly, and is expected to drop to 95.5% by the end of 2022, with a market scale of about 4.75 billion yuan.
(Picture from NCBD) In addition to the decline in growth rate, permeability is also a big problem. According to the data of China Industry Information Network, as of the end of last year, the market penetration rate of domestic commercial service robots was only 3%, and the penetration rate of food delivery robots was less than 1%, both at a low level. There is still a long way to go before they are fully popularized.
The Institute of Value (ID: jiazhiyanjiusao) believes that the epidemic has always been a catalyst for food delivery robots and unmanned delivery outlets, and has also promoted the entry of Meituan, Tencent, Ali and other giants to some extent. But in the long-term test and running in, the customer gradually understood one truth: Epidemic prevention has become the norm. Human distribution cannot be completely abolished. Unmanned distribution and meal delivery robots are not necessarily necessities.
At this time, they need to think more about practical problems - such as Cost performance and practicability 。
Among the factors that limit the penetration and scale growth of meal delivery robots, cost performance and practicality have always been two key words that cannot be avoided.
According to the official data of Purdue Technology, its main customers are chain catering enterprises and large hotels in first tier and new first tier cities. However, under the impact of the epidemic, the stores of these big customers are also shrinking and the expansion plan is facing a halt, which may affect not only front-line employees, but also the robots of Purdue.
According to the official website information, chain restaurants such as Haidilao, Xiabu Xiabu, Wangshunge, Xibei Youmian Village and Dalongyi are all important customers of Purdue Technology. At the end of last year, Haidilao concentrated on closing 300 stores, and Xiabu Xiabu began to close 200 loss making stores in the second half of last year.
In this unsatisfactory business environment, robot manufacturers need to make more efforts to make customers pay.
Indeed, according to Purdue Technology, food delivery robots are a more cost-effective choice for food enterprises. The company shared the three-year service life of the "Happy Send" series robots purchased for customers such as Haidilao, and the average monthly cost was only about 1000 yuan, far below the average monthly salary of 3000 yuan for waiters.
However, in practical applications, the effect and reputation of the food delivery robot are also controversial. Hongyan had previously disclosed that the person in charge of Shanghai Hema Robot Restaurant complained about the single function of the delivery robot. Once the customer's needs were more complex, manual service was still needed, which could not effectively reduce the needs of service personnel. In addition, the daily care and troubleshooting of robots are also expensive.
Big customers like Hema and Haidilao still have many concerns, not to mention other small and medium-sized enterprises. From this point of view, Purdue's market sinking battle is doomed to be difficult to succeed from the very beginning.
Of course, customers have their own dissatisfaction, and robot manufacturers have their own helplessness. As mentioned earlier, The cost of research and development and production of meal delivery robot is not low, but the path of technology upgrading is not clear. It is not so easy to solve the problem of insufficient practicability by improving technology.
Take the pangolin robot as an example. According to the statistics of Wisdom Bud, the pangolin has applied for 76 patents since 2010, and the number of applications in the last three years has dropped by 43.75% year on year. Of the 76 patents that have been applied for, only 32 are invention patents.
In fact, the underlying technology of different brands of food delivery robots is the same, and the only thing that manufacturers can compete for is the smoothness and stability of operation, which brings many difficulties to research and development and upgrading. However, as a high-tech industry, it is a matter of course that we should stick to technology. Perhaps on the day when we find a breakthrough in technology, Purdue's plan to increase income will be truly successful.
Write at the end
The rumor of the layoff of Purdue Technology has once again put Zhang Tao, the founder of Purdue Technology, in the center of public opinion.
As a scientific and technological genius with excellent educational background, rich entrepreneurial experience and many halos, Zhang Tao has always lived in the spotlight and enjoyed praise from all sides. In 2017, Purdue Technology won the "Best Design Award" of the German Red Dot Award, followed by many important awards such as "WISE2019 King of Business Intelligence", "2020CES Science and Technology Innovation Award".
Along the way, the wind and the water are smooth. I am used to enjoying Zhang Tao's popularity, and I have also developed a domineering personality. Prior to this, there was a news that employees received red envelopes in group chat but did not praise the enterprise's promotional videos, and then were scolded by Zhang Tao. Compared with his original high spirited spirit, Zhang Tao, who has now announced his decision to downsize and downsize, should also begin to learn to narrow his edge and keep a low profile.
In February this year, Zhang Tao promised in another open letter that if his income in the next three years could meet the company's goals, he would pay 50% of his salary in the current year to employees in the form of red envelopes. But now, many employees can't wait for the day when their promises are fulfilled.
Objectively speaking, for a startup company, the low ebb and layoff are inevitable curses. Many giants who will become the overlords in the future have had similar sad experiences. For Purdue Technology, the most important thing now is to live. Only by keeping the kindling, can we have the chance to make a comeback.
Although the air outlet of the food delivery robot is not yet mature, there is still hope of explosion. Whether we can solve the problems of cost performance and practicability depends on the capabilities of Purdue Technologies.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
