Having completed three rounds of financing in less than a year since its establishment, what kind of company is Pengsi Technology?

Qian Ming from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Less than a year after its official establishment, Pengsi Technology completed another round of financing.

Yesterday, this company focused on AI security announced that it had completed a RMB 150 million Series A financing round, led by industry funds such as 360 and Foxconn.

This is the third round of financing for Pensees Technology, and its previous investors include Hongtai Fund, IDG Capital, Gaojie Capital, Shanggu Capital, etc.

In less than a year, star institutions and industrial funds have invested in the company, reflecting their recognition of the company.

But it is worth noting that in the field of AI, the security track is already relatively mature.

Why was this young company able to gain favor from various investors so quickly? What kind of company is it? What is its unique approach? How will it develop in the future?

Ma Yuan, the founder and CEO of Pensees Technology, one of the first batch of AI graduates in China, gave the answer:

• First, based on the company’s existing core security business and business model, continue to consolidate the main security channel.

• Second, adhere to the industry + AI implementation strategy, continuously expand the boundaries of technology, and look for implementation scenarios for AI technology and vertical industries.

• Third, we will establish a Singapore Research Institute to enter new industries based on our security business and sufficient AI technology reserves.

These trends not only concern Pengsi, but also reflect the latest practices and thinking of new forces in the AI ​​industry.

How can new players in the AI ​​industry gain a foothold and develop? The stories of Ma Yuan and Peng Si may provide you with some reference.

AI security, there are still many opportunities

Pensees Technology was officially established in September 2018. At this point in time, AI security is already a slightly crowded track. At this year's CPSE alone, there were more than 100 AI security companies.

Moreover, as leading players in the industry such as SenseTime, Megvii, Yitu, and CloudWalk have successively become unicorns, voices have been heard from time to time that "the security battle is over."

Entering the security industry at this time seems quite inappropriate to outsiders.

But Ma Yuan still mortgaged his property and founded Pensees. Why? In his opinion, the main reasons are as follows:

First of all, the development of the security industry in the past few years is more like the Internet in the early 21st century, the era of portal websites such as Yahoo, Sina, and Sohu. Although they contain the imagination of the entire Internet, BAT, which focuses on social networking, e-commerce, and search, has not yet been born.

Now, the AI ​​security industry is ushering in the "BAT era", which will bring greater value and market space. This stage of development is not simply to empower the industry with an SDK, but to transform and upgrade the entire industry.

Secondly, AI is a very complex system. If any link goes wrong, the overall effect will be discounted. However, the current players in the security field are still relatively scattered.

If we compare it with smartphones, the current development status is more like Android. Some people are working on the AI ​​layer, some are working on the hardware, some are working on the cloud, some are working on the system, etc. This is not conducive to providing a complete and reliable security solution.

Third, AI security technology still has a long way to go. Currently, the most mature facial recognition technology is in the mobile phone scenario, but in this scenario, the user's cooperation is very high and the technical difficulty is relatively low.

The security field is different. It solves the problems of the entire society, various people in various scenarios, and the technical implementation is relatively complex.

“Why can we catch fugitives, but cannot find the lost elderly or abducted children?” This question directly exposes the fact that the various players in the security field have only solved a small part of the problem.

The above is the direction that Pengsi Technology, founded by Ma Yuan, is going to take.

How to do it?

Pengsi’s strategy: Focus on industry + AI

Pengsi’s solution is to build a hardware and software integrated solution based on the scenario.

Now, they have formed a team of more than 100 people, 70% of whom are engaged in R&D, including software, hardware, and algorithm teams. They have also completed the construction of a full range of self-developed product systems from end to end, from software and hardware to algorithms.

In terms of software, we have created portrait big data platform, smart police intelligence big data platform, smart community management platform, smart park management platform, intelligent manufacturing management platform, vehicle big data platform, etc.

As for hardware products, we have developed portrait-specific equipment for various practical scenarios of public security, as well as dual-screen ID machines, smart access control, vertical advertising machines, face recognition gate machines, etc. for industry and commercial fields.

At the algorithm level, it has also won championships in various competitions such as the IJB-A face verification and face recognition competition under unrestricted conditions of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Based on the above-mentioned algorithms, software and hardware products, Pengsi Technology has launched 16 feasible industry solutions for various business scenarios such as public security, smart communities, smart parks, intelligent transportation, smart manufacturing, etc., with customers covering more than 50 cities in China.

This approach is very different from that of most players in the security industry. Ma Yuan said that the difference is between "AI + industry" and "industry + AI".

The former represents a diversified layout based on AI, while the latter represents taking root in the industry and exploring various niche scenarios to come up with solutions.

In his opinion, these two types of companies are difficult to distinguish in the early stages, but will eventually go down two different paths.

In 2005, Ma Yuan entered Xidian University to study "Intelligent Science and Technology", one of the first artificial intelligence majors in China, and thus became involved in the field of computer vision.

After that, in 2012, he joined the Internet of Things Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to engage in face recognition research. In 2015, Ma Yuan joined Megvii Technology, responsible for AI+security work, and implemented AI security in many cities in China. It can be said that he has always been focused on the security field.

He chose "industry + AI" and made it the main channel of Pengsi.

He will also invest the funds obtained this time to strengthen the research and development of algorithms, software and hardware products, and to develop products for vertical industries such as smart security and smart manufacturing.

Strengthening technical reserves, Pensees is growing

At the same time, Pengsi Technology is also constantly improving its technical capabilities.

In March this year, they recruited Shen Shengmei, former vice president of Panasonic Singapore Research Institute, as chief scientist and established Pengsi Singapore Research Institute to conduct research in the fields of artificial intelligence technology and deep learning.

As one of the few Chinese female scientists in the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence, Shen Shengmei possesses full-stack technical capabilities in computer vision, and her technical capabilities span multiple application areas.

It has also achieved world-class results in the fields of deep learning-based face detection and recognition, pedestrian detection and tracking, pedestrian re-identification, license plate recognition, driver safety driving monitoring, intelligent driving visual positioning, and mobile operation robots.

Ma Yuan said that the core purpose of establishing the research institute is to reserve technology for Pengsi in the next ten years.

However, although it is named as a research institute, it also has to take into account industrial-grade R&D and delivery capabilities, emphasize the practical application of technology in the industry, and is committed to promoting the commercialization of AI technology.

From this, we can also see that Pengsi attaches great importance to the "industry + AI" strategy.

This investment from Foxconn and 360 also brings it more possibilities.

Ma Yuan said that they have also reached a strategic cooperation with Foxconn in smart parks and intelligent manufacturing.

The solutions provided by Pensees have been used to help Foxconn improve employee work efficiency, manage and standardize production processes, reduce corporate management costs, and improve corporate security levels.

In Ma Yuan's view, Pengsi has now found its own position, created value, and completed the development of entrepreneurship from 0 to 1.

In the short term, his goal is to lead Pensees to become a leading player in the security field. In the long term, he wants to build the company into a century-old company.