The 21st Century Economic Reporter Chen Zhi reports from Shanghai
Driven by the attention of all kinds of capital on the "smart home" track, a new round of capital battle in the smart bathroom industry is quietly heating up.
According to the data, 31 equity financing events occurred in China's bathroom industry from 2009 to 2022, and in 2019, the average amount of single equity financing in the bathroom industry reached a peak of 76 million yuan.
Although the venture capital market has been relatively depressed since last year, venture capital still extends an olive branch to emerging smart home and bathroom enterprises.
Recently, Xiaosheng Sanitary Ware, an intelligent sanitary ware enterprise under the Shengluowei Group, obtained the first round equity financing of 30 million yuan, which will be mainly used to promote the "electrification" development of sanitary ware.
Previously, another intelligent sanitary ware enterprise, Xijian Sanitary Ware, received tens of millions of yuan of equity investment from Jiuyuquan Fund, the government industry investment fund of Changsha Tianxin Economic Development Zone.
Behind this, more and more venture capital institutions use AI technology applications, biometrics and other cutting-edge technologies in the field of traditional home and bathroom as an important direction of their investment layout in the smart home sector - especially as people's kitchen and bathroom life begins to enter the era of "Internet of Everything", AI The application of a series of cutting-edge technologies, such as biometrics, in traditional home and bathroom not only effectively solves many pain points in kitchen and bathroom life, but also generates a series of new markets, bringing the possibility of "changing lanes and overtaking" to emerging smart home and bathroom enterprises.
Among them, the whole house smart home scene solution is becoming a major breakthrough favored by venture capital.
In the face of capital support for emerging smart home bathroom enterprises to actively layout the whole house smart home scene solutions, traditional industrial capital is also committed to building new business competition barriers through technological innovation.
Lin Xiaowei, the operation president of Jiumu Group, said in an interview with reporters during the China International Kitchen and Bathroom Exhibition that the enterprise has always adhered to the strategic positioning of "technology bathroom", launched the X90 ultra quiet digital intelligent toilet and the intelligent magic mirror cabinet equipped with Huawei intelligent technology, firmly grasped the development trend of intelligent scene of bathroom space, and promoted high-quality development of the industry.
In his opinion, when people's kitchen and bathroom life enters the era of "Internet of Everything", a series of new demands are giving birth to new service scenarios. The capital of the bathroom industry not only provides consumers with a single product, but also needs to be able to provide intelligent solutions for the whole house home scene. In the future, Jiumu Group will continue to focus on "scientific and technological innovation" and promote the iterative upgrading of smart home bathroom products in the four directions of "intelligence, health, green and beauty", so as to consolidate its own business competition barriers.
Liu Day, Chairman of Fortune Intelligence, said earlier that driven by cutting-edge technologies such as mobile phone+IoT, artificial intelligence, big data, application ecology and 5G, the deep integration of artificial intelligence and traditional home bathroom industry is accelerating, and the smart life in the family scene will fully usher in the outbreak. Among them, enterprises with core technology, deep user insight and rich industry experience are expected to "stand out" in the competitive process of the smart home track led by science and technology and shape a new business model.
Scientific and technological innovation enabling journey of industrial capital
The reporter learned that venture capital now focuses on the smart home race track. An important factor is that they value the power of machine vision, artificial intelligence, edge computing and other cutting-edge technologies to transform the traditional home bathroom industry. Once the traditional home bathroom becomes "smart", it will not only create more people's living needs and business models, but also accelerate the advent of the smart era of the whole house, Create a new high growth track.
Ruan Weihua, senior vice president of marketing of Hengjie Group, told reporters that with the advent of the era of intelligent bathroom, the solution for all bathroom space will break the traditional practice of using a single product to meet a single demand or several demands, and form a solution cluster with a multi product matrix to meet the diverse needs of the people.
"The truly suitable sanitary space solution for Chinese people must be a three-dimensional integration of design, products and services. In full understanding of the actual needs of Chinese people for sanitary space, the sanitary space solution will bring more possibilities to consumers with professional design, services and products. Strong intelligent manufacturing and supply chain support will provide support for the implementation of sanitary space solutions." Ruan Weihua said.
From the perspective of many venture capital capitals, the advent of the era of full house intelligence has also brought new opportunities for emerging smart home and bathroom enterprises to overtake at corners - through integrated design, systematic hardware, intelligent software, and humanized experience, emerging smart home enterprises are expected to complete the intelligent upgrading of various traditional home and bathroom products, It will bring itself broad development space and new business model.
Faced with the continuous increase of all kinds of capital in the investment of the whole house smart and smart home race track, industrial capital also felt the power of technological innovation to change the industrial pattern and the form of traditional household sanitary products.
Ruan Weihua told the reporter that Hengjie has been committed to improving product performance and building business barriers through technological innovation, including R&D of R10 intelligent toilet with breakthrough external water source technology, N8S ultra-thin wall mounted intelligent toilet with breakthrough built-in water tank, sprinkler with dual control cold water pre discharge function and other intelligent home products.
She said frankly that with the advent of the smart home era, the industry will take zero pressure flushing as a necessary condition to evaluate whether a smart toilet is good enough. However, the industry just ignores that cleaning is also the core function of intelligent toilets - how to make cleaning break through the pressure limit has always been a major challenge in the intelligent journey of home bathroom.
"Through scientific and technological innovation, the dual zero pressure system we developed can break through the shackles of braided pipes, customize any water source for cleaning and is not limited by water pressure, so that the intelligent toilet has more application scenarios. For example, in hospitals, some people who are at risk of postoperative infection can insert physiological saline or physiological lotion into the toilet to achieve more hygienic personalized cleaning; In hotels, shopping malls and other scenes, some people can introduce purified water for cleaning to meet their personalized requirements for sanitation. " Ruan Weihua stressed to reporters.
Jiumu Group, another sanitary industry capital, has built a new business competition barrier with scientific and technological innovation.
Lin Xiaowei told the reporter that in 2021, Jiumu and Huawei terminal BG will cooperate around the whole house intelligent business and explore the development trend of intelligent scene in bathroom space. Now, Jiumu and Huawei Whole House Intelligence have cooperated to launch the intelligent magic mirror cabinet, which is a touch screen function realized by the built-in 15.6-inch intelligent magic screen and supporting Huawei Cast Engine technology, and applies AI innovation to bathroom, kitchen, balcony and other spaces to create a smart scene with no sense of interaction in the whole house.
Yang Haisong, general manager of BG OEM ecological products of Huawei terminals, told reporters that they also hoped to build the intelligent magic mirror cabinet into an "entrance" for intelligent bathroom space experience, so as to create a better experience for people in terms of storage, makeup and lighting, information interaction, etc.
In his opinion, the intelligent bathroom space solution under the whole house intelligent concept still needs to do a lot of work, such as efficient dehumidification and automatic opening and closing in the dehumidification link; In the shower scene, one click zero cold water and environment heating should be achieved; In the toileting link, it is necessary to achieve the non-contact induction type of "people come to open, people go to close"; In the bath link, it is necessary to achieve one key bath without waiting and automatic drainage; In the process of dressing and washing, the lights should move with people and automatically dehumidify and defogger.
A partner of a venture capital firm focusing on smart home track investment told the reporter frankly that the current series of scientific and technological innovation explorations of industrial capital in the whole house intelligence also brought new inspiration to them to enable investment enterprises to optimize product research and development direction and business model. At present, they are more inclined to suggest that emerging smart home and bathroom enterprises should follow the development strategy of "single product explosion, scene superposition, and whole house intelligence", first build business competitiveness in the segmented product market and form stable revenue, and then gradually increase scientific research investment to layout the whole house intelligent industry chain.
"Science and technology competition" behind business sailing
It is worth noting that with the rise of smart and smart home bathroom solutions for the whole house, more and more venture capital institutions also see new opportunities for China's smart bathroom products to "go to sea".
The partner of the above venture capital institution focusing on smart home race track investment told reporters that in the past, the furniture industry has always been led by Western countries in product innovation and scientific and technological innovation, and Southeast Asian enterprises such as China are responsible for OEM production. However, with the booming development of China's smart home bathroom industry, China's bathroom enterprises have now passed the technological empowerment in the design, production Marketing model innovation and other links have strong competitiveness, opening a new space for business internationalization.
In his view, at present, China's intelligent bathroom products are no less competitive than those of Western enterprises in many aspects through technology empowerment. For example, in the aspect of long-term antibacterial effect, the research and development ability of crystal glaze and innovative design from the perspective of clean water of Chinese intelligent sanitary ware enterprises have made the 24-hour long-term antibacterial effect of products no longer belong to the products of western countries.
Lin Xiaowei told the reporter that at present, four international brands under Jiumu Group - THG, Poggenpohl, Urbain, Goldreif have arranged overseas kitchen, bathroom and other scenes, which has significantly accelerated the pace of enterprises going to sea.
Ruan Weihua said that many new functions of China's intelligent bathroom products can effectively address the common life needs of consumers at home and abroad through scientific and technological innovation. For example, when consumers use the shower, waiting for hot water is a "headache". Through the self-developed dual control cold water pre drainage system, Hengjie can drain all cold water in one click, allowing consumers to enter the shower room and open the shower to feel the hot water shower. In addition, consumers don't like too much noise when flushing the toilet. Hengjie continues to upgrade the zero pressure smart static flushing technology, which can achieve both flushing and silence.
The partners of the aforementioned venture capital institutions told the reporter that they had previously invested in a domestic emerging intelligent bathroom R&D enterprise, because they found that the enterprise had developed a comprehensive scale inhibition technology, which could effectively solve the scale inhibition problem of large size top sprinklers and hand-held shower sprinklers, giving such products a high chance of rapid popularization in the global market. After all, consumers all over the world do not like to encounter problems such as insufficient water flow due to the scale inhibition of the shower when taking a shower.
In his view, relying on the empowerment of scientific and technological innovation, Chinese intelligent bathroom enterprises are expected to export intelligent solutions for the whole house and the whole bathroom space to the world, thus creating greater development space for themselves.
Lin Xiaowei believes that the great changes in the global industry and technological changes have brought huge development opportunities to Chinese enterprises. What Jiumu Group needs to do is to continue to open up the whole link of production, manufacturing and product research and development enabled by scientific and technological innovation, create a new track with technological innovation, and eventually surpass the original industry leader in the international market.
Many insiders pointed out that whether it is industrial capital or venture capital institutions that are vigorously supporting emerging smart home and bathroom enterprises, whoever can quickly establish a foothold in the overseas market is expected to occupy a favorable position in the future competition pattern of the new track of smart home and bathroom.
