AI unicorn Fourth Paradigm is sprinting for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange! Five state-owned banks have invested in it and it has just received a large manufacturing order from CATL

Yang Jing from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Another AI unicorn is heading for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

According to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Fourth Paradigm has officially started the process of listing in Hong Kong.

As the first startup to attract investment from the five major state-owned banks, what is worth seeing about Fourth Paradigm, which has just started cooperation with CATL?

11 rounds of financing with a valuation of over 10 billion

On July 29, the International Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission disclosed the "Approval for the Initial Overseas Public Offering of Shares (including common shares, preferred shares and other types of shares and stock derivatives)" materials submitted by Fourth Paradigm.

If the materials are accepted, Fourth Paradigm will submit its prospectus as early as the end of this month.

As early as August last year, founder and CEO Dai Wenyuan said that Fourth Paradigm was actively exploring listing opportunities on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

Although there is no clear timetable, it is on the agenda.

It takes at least six months to prepare for the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Even if preparation begins at that time, it will not be seen until the first half of 2021 at the earliest.

It now seems that the time has come to fulfill its promise, but it is not the Science and Technology Innovation Board as mentioned earlier.

Prior to this, Fourth Paradigm had already been widely favored by the capital market:

After 11 rounds of financing, the valuation has already exceeded 10 billion .

Since the angel round of financing in 2015, 4Paradigm has received investments from dozens of well-known institutions, including Sequoia Capital, Tencent Investment, Goldman Sachs, CITIC Industry Fund, Cornerstone Capital, Yuansheng Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Summit Capital, and Jinyi Capital.

Earlier this year, 4Paradigm received $700 million in Series D funding, led by Boyu Capital, Primavera Capital, and Hopu Investments. This is the largest single round of financing in the AI ​​field since 2020.

This process also created a first:

The first startup invested by the five largest state-owned banks: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China Limited, China Construction Bank, and Bank of Communications.

The company's largest shareholder is founder and CEO Dai Wenyuan , who holds 26.54% of the shares.

Public information shows that Dai Wenyuan graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University. He ranks second in the world in the number of papers cited in the field of transfer learning. As a leader in machine learning at Baidu, he participated in guiding multiple products such as Baidu Related Search and Baidu Brain.

At the end of 2014, Dai Wenyuan founded Fourth Paradigm, which focuses on providing artificial intelligence platform and technology services.

What does Fourth Paradigm do?

In other words, help customers perform high-quality intelligent upgrades through AI and accelerate the transformation of traditional industries.

Taking the financial industry as an example, Fourth Paradigm provides a series of intelligent applications such as risk control systems and recommendation systems to most domestic state-owned banks and joint-stock banks.

In the seven years since its establishment, Fourth Paradigm has expanded its business scope from the main financial industry to retail, manufacturing, energy, government, medical care, Internet, media, logistics, agriculture, high-tech and many other industries.

Dai Wenyuan once revealed that in terms of industry revenue share, the financial sector, which the company first entered, accounts for no more than 50%. At the same time, new retail and manufacturing industries are growing rapidly.

However, it was also emphasized that the proportion of the financial sector has declined, but the absolute amount is growing rapidly.

Especially when the "black swan" struck in 2020, Fourth Paradigm planned and implemented operational capabilities with AI as the core driving force for many customers, accelerating the process of enterprise onlineization.

Business growth is inseparable from product technology drive.

At present, Fourth Paradigm has formed a full-stack AI product matrix from computing power, operating systems, production platforms to business systems.

Last August, 4Paradigm released the world’s first AI operating system , Sage AIOS, as well as a series of products including Sage HyperCycleML, Tianshu, and SageOne.

After 10 months, this AI operating system ushered in a major upgrade to version 2.0. The core component Sage AIOS was open sourced, and an AI version of the App Store was also launched.

Some time ago, Fourth Paradigm also signed a "big order" from CATL.

The two companies officially announced a strategic partnership. Based on the full life cycle AI application and management capabilities of the SageAIOS platform, the two companies will inject AI decision-making capabilities into all aspects of CATL's production and manufacturing, and jointly promote the manufacturing industry to accelerate its transformation towards intelligent manufacturing.

The cooperation with CATL is also another landmark development of 4Paradigm after it has landed businesses in finance, healthcare, retail , etc.

We have come to the manufacturing field , which has broader market prospects and space .

As the IPO is approaching, the cooperation with CATL can better demonstrate the mission of Fourth Paradigm:

AI for Everyone.

Reference link:
https://neris.csrc.gov.cn/alappl/home/gongshi