Aibee, founded by Lin Yuanqing, received K1.1 billion investment to upgrade offline retail with AI technology

Leifeng.com learned that on May 7, Aibee, a startup founded by Lin Yuanqing, the former director of Baidu Research Institute, announced a strategic partnership with K11 and received RMB 100 million in funding from K11 founder Adrian Cheng. This partnership made it clear that Aibee will first use AI technology to upgrade and empower the retail industry.

At the end of 2017, when Lin Yuanqing left Baidu to establish Aibee, he proposed that Aibee would start from the pain points and values ​​of industry users, fully integrate various AI technologies such as computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, big data recommendation and prediction, provide complete solutions, and effectively help traditional industries to empower and upgrade with AI.

AI upgrading traditional industries is a major trend in the current commercialization of AI. Technology alone is not enough. How to find the right scenarios and applications is the key. When Lin Yuanqing started his business, everyone was curious about which field he would choose. At that time, Lin Yuanqing said that he would never do projects around "single-point technology", but would integrate multiple technologies such as computer vision, image recognition, and speech recognition in an all-round way based on the pain points of the industry. He would definitely not make customized solutions for a company. It is not AI to Company, but AI to Industry.

On January 16, 2018, Aibee announced that it had received RMB 165 million in angel round financing. According to Leifeng.com, this round of financing was led by Kinzon Capital, and ZhenFund, Huachuang Capital, Xiangfeng Evergreen, Lenovo Capital, Sequoia Capital, Yonghua Investment, Horizon and other institutions and other individual investors participated in the investment, setting a new record for the amount of angel round financing for Chinese AI startups. At that time, Lin Yuanqing revealed that he was working with a leading offline retail company, and the client estimated that Aibee's overall AI solution could bring it RMB 1 billion in value each year.

It now appears that the first industry that Lin Yuanqing entered was offline retail.

The founder of K11 is Zheng Zhigang, the eldest grandson of Hong Kong real estate tycoon Cheng Yutong. The Zheng family's businesses cover commercial retail, real estate, jewelry, and gambling. New World Development Co., Ltd. and Chow Tai Fook are the two most important listed flagships. Zheng Zhigang is currently the executive vice chairman and co-general manager of New World Development, and the executive director of New World China Land, New World Department Store China, and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Co., Ltd.

郑志刚在香港创办了世界上第一个艺术购物中心——香港尖沙咀K11艺术购物中心，其后，他开始布局内地，把K11带到上海、天津、沈阳、宁波、武汉等地。

The cooperation with Aibee will be expanded to 28 K11 projects in 9 cities, more than 40 department stores and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group with more than 2,300 branches by 2023. These different types of offline retail scenarios will also help Aibee form a more complete industry solution.