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After going out to ask questions, another AI model technology company is sprinting for IPO. Recently, Yunzhisheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yunzhisheng) submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, intending to list on the main board, with CICC and Haitong International acting as joint sponsors.
IPO again, the road to financing is bumpy
In fact, this is the second time Unisound has sought an IPO. Founded in 2012, UniSound is one of the first companies in Asia to apply deep neural network algorithms to speech recognition products and release a commercial cloud speech recognition engine based on deep learning.
Since 2016, Unisound has built an artificial intelligence technology system for large-scale commercial applications. In the next few years, Unisound used its professional experience in interactive AI to launch its first BERT-based large language model UniCore and related AI solutions to customers in more vertical industries.
In 2020, Yunzhisheng, which was developing well at that time, began its journey to become the first AI voice stock on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. However, it was cracked down by iFLYTEK data at that time, and Yunzhisheng withdrew it on the grounds of "for strategic development considerations". listing application. Subsequently, Yunzhisheng, which failed to be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, carried out a number of layoffs while continuing to seek financing.
In 2022, Yunzhisheng began to explore the innovative application of generative pre-trained large language models. At present, Yunzhisheng's key technology platform, Yunzhibrain, includes its own large model of Shanhai language and various AI components. Among them, the large model of Shanhai is the core of Yunzhibrain, which has more than 60 billion parameters.
In May of this year, Yunzhisheng quickly completed a new round of financing of more than 700 million yuan, relying on the innovative application of the large model of mountains and seas. However, judging from the prospectus submitted by Unisound to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the company is still in the stage of continuous loss, tight cash flow, and continuous investment in research and development. Therefore, re-listing has become an inevitable choice for Unisound.
Sustained losses, difficulties in collecting accounts, tight cash flow
Yunzhi brain technology platform provides competitive products and solutions for a wide range of application scenarios in smart life and smart medical care. With the popularity of general artificial intelligence, Yunzhisheng has devoted himself to this large-scale model competition without hesitation. This is a new opportunity and a new challenge.
According to the company information provided by Unisound to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in 2022, Unisound's solutions will serve 538 customers. As of December 31, 2022, Yunzhisheng's solutions have been applied in industries such as medical care, home furnishing, commercial space, hotels, and transportation.
Application Scenarios of Atlas Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure, Yunzhibrain and Yunzhisheng AI Solutions Source: Yunzhisheng Prospectus
According to Frost & Sullivan, Yunzhisheng is the fourth largest AI solution provider in China in terms of revenue in 2022, and is the fastest growing among companies with annual revenue exceeding 500 million yuan.
1. In terms of revenue: revenue has increased year by year, but it is still facing losses.
According to the information submitted by Unisound, in the revenue data of Unisound in the past three years, the company's revenue has increased year by year. 251 million yuan in 2020, 456 million yuan in 2021, and 601 million yuan in 2022.
Yunzhisheng revenue statistics from 2020 to 2022 Source: Data Ape Self-made
However, although the income has increased year by year and has shown a steady growth trend, it has still been in a state of loss in the past three years. The loss in 2020 will be 298 million yuan, the loss in 2021 will be 434 million yuan, and the loss in 2022 will be 375 million yuan. The total loss in three years exceeded 1.1 billion yuan.
Yunzhisheng's loss statistics from 2020 to 2022 Source: Data Ape Self-made
2. Horizontal comparison with AI companies, taking Shangtang and Yuncong as examples
Revenue data tables of SenseTime, CloudWalk, and Unisound Source: Data Ape Self-made
Compared with AI companies such as Shangtang Technology and Yuncong Technology, Yunzhisheng's revenue of 601 million yuan is far lower than Shangtang Technology's 3.809 billion yuan, but higher than Yuncong Technology's 526 million yuan in revenue; In terms of gross profit margin, Unisound's gross profit margin of 39.94% is also slightly higher than that of Yunwalk Technology's 34.06%. In terms of the net profit and net interest rate of the three companies, which are also negative, Yunzhisheng's net interest rate is -62.5%, which is relatively better than SenseTime's -159.98% and Yuncong's -174.08%. However, the above data shows that SenseTime and CloudWalk have been successfully listed for financing, and the financial pressure is relatively small, and the reason for the higher investment in R&D.
3. To B business has a long payment cycle and difficult collection
In terms of revenue, UniSound ranks third in China's smart life and smart hospital industries. The extensive commercial application of its products and solutions has provided it with sufficient user feedback, which in turn supports the continuous iteration of the mountain and sea model to become the core of Yunzhi Brain. However, although it ranks third in China's smart life and smart medical industries, the business scale and growth rate of smart life are much higher than smart medical.
At the same time, its smart solutions are now mainly to the B side, unlike iFlytek and OpenAI, which are directly to C products. According to UniSound's current development plan, the business model it adopts in the Internet of Things and medical care is basically to provide services to the B-end and charge fees, and it will also expand to more vertical industries in the future.
However, despite the large profit margins and high single revenue of such a TO B business, there are still some problems, such as: strong relationship-driven, complex interest chain, especially the long payment cycle. It is understood that in the past three years, the revenue contributed by Unisound's top five customers accounted for 40.1%, 34.4%, and 30.8% respectively. Among them, a single major customer contributed 20.6%, 21.6%, and 13.1% of Unisound's revenue.
On the one hand, customers are too concentrated, which may affect their own sustainable development capabilities; on the other hand, the problem of difficult payment is also highlighted. According to Yunzhisheng’s prospectus, in the past three years, accounts receivable have increased from 115 million yuan in 2020 to 266 million yuan in 2021, and then to 369 million yuan in 2022.
As seen above, Yunzhisheng’s total revenue in 2022 will be 601 million yuan, and according to the current data performance, more than half of the 601 million revenue in 2022 will be receivables. Through simple calculations, we found that in the three years from 2020 to 2022, the accounts receivable of Yunzhisheng accounted for 43.9%, 58.3%, and 61.4% of the total revenue respectively. The ratio of accounts receivable to revenue has increased year by year, and will even exceed 60% in 2022. Most of the income cannot be recognized in cash, which has resulted in Yunzhisheng's negative operating cash flow all year round. From 2020 to 2022, Yunzhisheng's net operating cash flow will be -163 million, -267 million, and -166 million respectively.
Unisound’s trade receivables Source: Unisound Prospectus
Yunzhisheng's credit repayment period for customers is six months, but in the past two years, many receivables have been postponed. According to the data in the prospectus, Yunzhisheng’s accounts receivable turnover days will be 179 days, 185 days, and 254 days from 2020 to 2022. All of the above have exceeded the 180-day safety line set by it. Last year, Yunzhisheng had 182 million yuan of receivables with an account receivable period of more than one year.
If this continues, it can be inferred that some of Yun Zhisheng's accounts may not be collected. This may also be the reason why Yunzhisheng's income looks good, but its cash flow is very tight.
The core of Yunzhi brain - the large model of mountains and seas, the potential is waiting to be released
The large model of mountains and seas is the core of Yunzhi brain. After massive text-to-code estimation training, it has more than 60 billion parameters and has powerful general-purpose capabilities. Yunzhisheng said that the Shanhai Big Model has the capabilities of language generation, semantic understanding, knowledge question and answer, logical reasoning, mathematical calculation and code generation, and will create a MaaS (Model as an Application) solution through plug-in expansion, industry enhancement and customization, etc. The way to land in vertical industries such as the Internet of Things and medical care. Yunzhisheng emphasized: Our large-scale model will be comparable to ChatGPT within this year, and surpass GPT-4 in multiple vertical fields such as medical care, Internet of Things, and education, and finally realize AGI (General Artificial Intelligence).
At the press conference of Yunzhisheng's large-scale mountain and sea model, Yunzhisheng explained the performance of the large-scale mountain and sea model. In terms of versatility, the Shanhai large model has strong capabilities in natural language, general knowledge, reasoning, and rapid learning, and can handle complex application scenarios in the industry to improve commercialization efficiency. In terms of adaptability, Yunzhisheng can integrate the large mountain and sea model with the customer's own knowledge base, real-time information and ready-made APIs to optimize its performance in highly specialized application scenarios. In terms of efficiency, the AI solution of Shanhai Big Model is inherently highly adaptable and can handle the mainstream needs of multiple industries. When expanding the application scope of AI solutions, it is not necessary to carry out model replication and process redevelopment according to specific business logic, which greatly reduces the required manpower input.
Based on Unisound Brain, Unisound said it can provide easy-to-deploy AI products and solutions. These products and solutions are based on Unisound's ever-increasing MaaS capabilities and can be fine-tuned for customers, helping to improve the operation of customers' enterprises. efficiency and productivity.
In the field of smart life, Yunzhisheng provides a variety of AI products and solutions for smart living scenarios such as smart residences, commercial spaces, hotels and transportation. Empowered by AI solutions, enterprises can provide customers with immersive intelligent products and services, improve operational efficiency and service quality, and reduce management costs.
According to Unisound’s prospectus, in 2022, Unisound’s smart life solutions have provided support for 373 customers (including one of China’s top three insurance groups, Shenzhen Metro Line 20 and Xiamen Software Park). Yunzhi claims to be able to provide developers and enterprises with AI large language models on demand through MaaS. The main products include public cloud-based AI capability API, customized private AI technology service platform, AI model embedded chip and IoT hardware module. In 2022, the peak monthly call volume of external users of Yunzhisheng's AI capabilities will be 915.8 million. In 2022, Yunzhisheng stated that it has sold 12.8 million AI chips to developers and customers.
In the field of smart medical care, Yunzhisheng emphasizes that it can provide AI-enabled medical solutions, such as medical record voice input, medical record quality control, single disease quality control and medical insurance payment management. Use AI solutions to help medical staff improve efficiency, standardize medical service processes and decision-making, thereby reducing medical errors, improving the quality of medical services and protecting the rights and interests of patients. In 2022, Unisound has provided solutions to 165 customers.
Huang Wei, founder and CEO of Unisound, said that the release of the large model of mountains and seas is an important milestone in the upgrade of Unisound’s AGI technology architecture. On the basis, it will enhance the capabilities of industries such as the Internet of Things and medical care, provide customers with smarter and more flexible solutions, and open up a larger business space for the industrialization of AI technology.
Under the wave of AGI initiated by large models, this is a new story Yunzhisheng tells the capital market, and it also clearly shows its ambition in the AI era. However, it is not enough to launch a large model of mountains and seas. The key is to promote the application of large models of mountains and seas and find scenarios that can give full play to their value. Otherwise, the bottleneck of AI implementation before will still be a problem in the era of large models.
At present, the domestic AI industry, whether it is a big factory or a unicorn company, is scrambling for time and fighting for landing. How Yunzhisheng can develop in-depth scenarios in smart life and smart medical care, and expand into more different fields is a question it should think about. At the same time, the iterative upgrade of large models requires high investment, which is undoubtedly a continuous challenge for Yunzhisheng, which has a low revenue scale and tight cash flow. General artificial intelligence is an attractive fruit, but also a road full of thorns. For many companies, including Yunzhisheng, before seeing the dawn of AGI, the more important thing is how to ensure their survival.
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Text: Mu Qingyi / Data Ape
