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Jifei Technology: Cool Technology Flies Into Farmland How Far Can Chinese Agricultural Science And Technology "Gazelle" Run?

2020/11/17 11:30:00 191

TechnologyFarmlandAgricultureTechnologyGazelle

Editor's note

Starting from the November 17 issue, the 21st century economic report has launched a series of special topics, "on high growth enterprises: discovering the sample of gazelle" in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay area, and plans to launch 10 issues in a row. The series of reports were jointly planned and implemented by the headquarters of Guangdong Hong Kong Macao big bay district of China Central Radio and television, the center of Guangdong Hong Kong Macao big bay area and the southern finance and economics Omnimedia group.

This series of reports focuses on the high growth enterprises in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Through in-depth first-line interviews and field research, we try to present the group stories of "Gazelle" enterprises active in the strategic emerging industries in Dawan District, excavate the explorations, discoveries and efforts of Dawan entrepreneurs in their respective industries, as well as their struggle, choice and thinking.

In the first report, let's focus on agriculture, and focus on Jifei technology. This is an agricultural science and technology company. Starting from a group of geek team workshops with their own interests and love, through more than ten years of tortuous road exploration, it finally chose "finding technology for agriculture", introduced cool modern AI technology into ancient agriculture, and took "improving global agricultural production efficiency" as its own responsibility and vision. This is a track that seems to be rarely taken, full of thorns. But as the saying goes, "all the laurels of honor in the world are made of thorns."

"We want to make the farmland in Xinjiang full of agricultural UAVs!"

Many years later, Peng bin, founder and CEO of Jifei technology, sat in front of the red UAV samples in the company's exhibition hall, and recalled that afternoon when he was lying in the desert of Xinjiang after drinking, his eyes were still shining.

It was his first trip to Xinjiang in 2013. After eating the slogan of the company's vice president, Gong Qintao, together with the founder of the company, called out the slogan of the future of the company.

Many years later, Peng bin admitted to the 21st century economic reporter that if he said this in public, he would probably be called "bragging".

2013 is an important node in the development of Jifei. In this year, Jifei began to try in the field of agriculture. In the following year, Jifei team stationed in Xinjiang, from the start of closed herbicide to defoliant before harvest, carried out experiments of UAV spraying pesticides on cotton fields all year round. After a busy year, Zheng Tao told Peng bin at the end of the year: the idea of spraying pesticides by UAVs is feasible, but UAVs are still "not very good".

At that time, the failure of agricultural UAVs, which were still in the trial stage, were so frequent that the cooperative farmers could not look down on it. They said that it was better to send a pesticide sprayer to each young man and "finish the work" earlier. But Peng bin was very happy about this. "At that time, I thought, if this idea didn't work, then the road would not go on." "But if drones aren't good enough, isn't that what we're good at?" he told 21st century business reporter

After the exploration test, the company chose "all in" to go to the agricultural track, although at that time, it seemed that there was a "flying sky" - several of the company's main executives did not even have agricultural background. However, today, Jifei's agricultural UAV has covered 1 / 2 of the 37 million mu cotton fields in Xinjiang, and the "cattle" that year has become a reality. Jifei also made profits in 2018, and its revenue has basically maintained a growth rate of 200% in recent years.

On November 16, Jifei technology announced that it had completed a new round of financing of 1.2 billion yuan. This round of financing is led by Baidu capital and Softbank vision fund phase II, and the investors are capital, Innovation workshop, Yuexiu industry fund and Guangzhou emerging fund.

Today, Jifei's agricultural UAV has covered half of Xinjiang's 37 million mu cotton fields. Materials and pictures

Geek takes off: find "what we want to do"

"Geek" is a kind of "geek" in essence.

This technology element is fully reflected in this. For example, the company's website (Xa. Com) consists of the English letter "X" for geeks and the initials for agriculture. Even Jifei's image recognition system has chosen red as the main color - red coating can make it easier for UAVs to fly on green farmland.

Looking back on his early entrepreneurial career, Peng bin joked that he started his business as a "3F team": a fool, a friend and a family. "Everyone was a geek.". He said that some colleagues in the team "wanted to see if they could ride the" 28 bars "to Beijing, so they really rode bicycles from Xi'an to Beijing; others, dishevelled and bloodshot, were still crazy about computer programming. "This support company survived in the first and second stages," he said

2007-2013 is the "first stage" of the development of Jifei, and its predecessor "xaircraft" is more like a "small workshop" composed of technicians. The development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been gradually expanded from rotor to UAV. Although the net profit was realized, Peng Bin said frankly that there was no financing at that time, "all the people who can survive depend on diligence and Thrift".

In 2014, the team completed the transformation to a modern enterprise and transformed into "Jifei technology". After meeting dozens of investors, Jifei got an investment of 20 million US dollars in that year.

After completing a round of financing, Jifei has entered the "second stage", and the challenge of Jifei team has become how to find the future survival and development path for the company.

With the rapid development of electronic devices, the cost of electronic devices in the information industry is also rapidly declining. UAVs have caught up with this "east wind" and ushered in the outbreak of the industry in 2013. Several leading enterprises on the "UAV industrial highland" in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao big bay area all walked out of their own way around this time.

Shenzhen's Dajiang technology released the first consumer class multi rotor UAV in 2011, which grasped the air outlet of "aerial photography", and since then, it has won the dust in the consumer class market. Yihang intelligent, also located in Guangzhou, has experienced the battle of the consumer market, and has gradually established itself in the fields of air performance and UAV transportation, and will be listed in 2019.

In the transition from a "fun" model to a "useful, easy to use" UAV, the consumer market with aerial photography as the main function was once the most clear track. Peng bin also admitted that this is a market that has been verified, and entering it can "save a lot of things"; however, Jifei technology has found and verified the feasibility of agricultural UAVs in exploring the application prospects of UAVs in scientific research, inspection, search and rescue, logistics and agriculture. The geek team chose the latter.

"This is what we want to do." Peng Bin said.

Agriculture needs cool technology

In 2014, Jifei technology carried out a year-round pesticide spraying test in cotton fields.

At first, when looking for cooperative farmers, Jifei was willing to provide free spraying service, but some farmers were still worried that the experiment would affect the harvest. For this reason, Jifei also needs to promise to farmers that if there is an accident, it will compensate the farmers for all the expected harvest. By the middle of the year, farmers had come to say that they wanted to hire Jifei team to help spray pesticides. "He came over and said that you helped our family to spray the farmland, and also offered us 400 yuan first." Peng bin was deeply impressed by this.

After confirming the feasibility of UAV spraying pesticide, Peng bin decided to "all in" agriculture. "China has 2 billion mu of farmland, with 10 billion mu of operations per year. This is a huge market." "We have to concentrate our resources and saturate at one point," he said To this end, he "half pull and half drag" to persuade the team to cut off other businesses.

In 2015, Jifei launched the first generation of plant protection UAV, but encountered difficulties in business model exploration. At that time, the cost of agricultural UAV was high, and the price of one UAV was several times the income of farmers in a year, so the space for further cost reduction was extremely limited. Jifei began to try direct marketing services to provide pesticide spraying services for farmers by charging. "Our service team was once more than 400 people, and it is almost the largest agricultural service company in China."

At the same time of technology promotion to a certain extent, the stability of the equipment was improved and the price dropped. A number of agricultural pesticide dealers began to try the agricultural UAV spraying pesticide service. At the same time, as the State encourages young people to return to their hometown to start their own businesses, a group of young people with "technology" have returned to the countryside and become professional pilots in the operation of agricultural UAVs. They are better able to adapt to the complexity of the local team.

Jifei basically ended the direct marketing service in 2017, and has only retained the data direct marketing service. In this year, Jifei began to sell its plant protection UAVs to the outside world. In the first year, its revenue exceeded 100 million yuan, and by 2018, it had achieved a profit.

The understanding of agriculture is changing in its own field.

The practice in farmland made Peng bin realize that rural areas do not need "cool" science and technology, but that the current scientific and technological products can not better serve the needs of rural areas.

For many people, the city is closer to life, and the "future" of automatic driving and robot delivering meals is easier to imagine; while the automation and unmanned in farmland is far away from life, and the value transmission is weak.

"We should not only look for industry for technology, we should look for technology for industry." In June 2018, Peng bin and the company's management carried out a new strategic thinking.

By the end of that year, Jifei no longer claimed to be a "UAV company", and its positioning was adjusted to "agricultural technology company". In 2019, Jifei has launched agricultural unmanned vehicle, agricultural machinery self driving instrument and intelligent agricultural system, and its product line has further expanded to more fields of agricultural life.

Jifei puts forward the company's vision of "improving the efficiency of global agricultural production", and a corporate culture based on geek spirit, inclusive learning and providing optimal service for customers.

Jifei is trying to expand people's imagination of "future farmland" through various publicity methods. "The key is to reach out to talents, so that they can understand that agricultural technology can also be" cool. " "The power of one enterprise is still small. If there are 100 enterprises, it will be very different," said Peng bin

Driving out of "entrepreneurial Death Valley"

As the business of agricultural UAV is getting better and better, Jifei has grown into the largest agricultural UAV company in China when the company has achieved profits and entered the orbit of rapid growth of revenue. The latest round of financing announced on November 16 is considered to be the largest financing of agricultural science and technology in China, and the second largest financing in the field of UAV.

Is this a sign that Jifei technology company has driven out of the "entrepreneurial Death Valley"? Peng bin was careful not to give a positive answer.

Peng bin believes that if Jifei is an ocean exploration ship, it has successfully landed twice in 2013 and 2018. "We are a geek team. After landing and resupplying, we will re sail to the new world."

Peng bin is still satisfied with his performance in the third two years. Especially in 2020, many industries will be affected by the double disturbance of market demand and supply chain brought by the outbreak of new crown pneumonia, but Jifei technology has not been greatly affected, but its performance has risen rapidly against the trend.

What's the "upper limit" of Jifei? In Peng Bin's mind, the benchmarking enterprises are John Deere and Kubota.

Headquartered in Illinois, the United States, John Deere is the "overlord" in the global agricultural machinery field, ranking 319 in the Fortune Global 500 list in 2020. John Deere was founded in 1837. With the process of American urban industrialization and agricultural mechanization after the second industrial revolution, John Deere developed from a blacksmith who produced polished steel plows to a global agricultural machinery giant.

"In the process of agricultural modernization in the United States, it is inevitable that large-scale agricultural technology companies will be born. If not John Deere, there will be other businesses. The right soil will eventually nurture such enterprises. " Peng bin pointed out.

Japan has also stepped out of the agricultural machinery giant Kubota, whose annual revenue exceeds 100 billion yuan. Its small agricultural machinery such as rice transplanter and harvester once "occupied" the Chinese market, and now it still has a strong performance in the Southeast Asian market.

China's urbanization process has led to the decrease of rural population and the demand of "aging", as well as the relatively perfect communication infrastructure in rural areas, and the relatively complete industrial chain of "world factory", etc., which together constitute the "soil" for the rise of China's agricultural science and technology companies. Peng bin stressed that the foundation of Jifei's business logic is that China's agricultural modernization has reached a stage where new technology is needed.

Peng bin believes that the soil in which John Deere and Kubota grew up was the agricultural modernization process in which their respective countries were ahead of the world at that time. They first defined a series of standards and mechanisms, and their products also entered the markets of other countries.

"Now, China has such an opportunity." He said. At present, the proportion of Jifei products exported to the international market is about 10% - 15%. Peng bin pointed out that China's agricultural reform speed is far beyond imagination. For example, the slope of change in the age of the rural population has exceeded previous expectations, and market changes are accelerating.

"Can we speed up the pace and race with ourselves so that technology matures faster than the decline of agricultural population?" "We need to meet the market demand as quickly as possible," he said

In the new wave of agricultural intelligence led by the scientific and technological revolution, can the story of American and Japanese agricultural technology giants be repeated in China?

 

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