Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

There are a lot of new things happening around us, the current real-time hot spots and the hottest topics. We should charge more for ourselves, master more knowledge and make ourselves knowledgeable. At present, the Internet, technology and digital are closely related to our lives. Today, Bian Xiao sorted out some information and shared it with you.

(official account of Wechat:) Xinzhi Creative Press: fusion Fund (named NewGen Capital when the first fund was launched) is a young Silicon Valley venture capital firm founded in 2015 focusing on early-stage startups with core technologies. Another reason the company is labeled "young" is that its founder Zhang Lu is very young, only 28 years old. In 2017, Zhang Lu was selected by Forbes'30 under-30s and investment industry themes (the first Chinese to be the subject of the US list), and also on the Asian Financial Industry Forbes 30 under-30s list. He was the only investor listed on Forbes lists in both regions in the same year. This article is an exclusive interview with Zhang Lu and tells the road of Zhang Lu's investment.

When the millennium was approaching, Robin Li, who had just stood up, was restless, but he soon made a decision. Then, as now, he calmly handed in his resignation, booked a flight, and flew back to Zhongguancun from Silicon Valley. On the first day of the new millennium (January 1, 2000), Baidu was officially established. At that time, Zhang was eleven.

At that time, Robin Li was seen as a symbol, and behind this symbol was a group of people returning from Silicon Valley.

Ten years later, Zhang Lu graduated from University. She quickly packed her bags and traveled across the ocean to Stanford to continue her studies. Like industrious Chinese entrepreneurs in the past, Zhang Lu, a technical graduate at Stanford, founded acetone, a medical technology company, whose products are used in the early diagnosis of type II diabetes. Two years later, Zhang Lu successfully sold acetone and was invited to become a partner in Fenox Venture Capital, which manages a $1 billion fund. At the age of 26, she left Fenox to start Fusion Fund and embarked on a second company, but did not choose to return home.

At this point, Zhang Lu also seems to be a symbol. Behind this symbol is not only the foreign capital looking at the Chinese market, but also the Chinese capital waiting for the opportunity to go to sea.

During the decade of focusing on investing in the United States, changes in the general trend in China and the United States have changed personal choices.

Zhang Lu's fusion fund is a pure dollar fund and is currently the fastest growing new fund in Silicon Valley. She is often reported in the newspaper. Many people came here, including many domestic institutions, invited her and the fusion fund team to manage RMB funds, but she did not consider it for the time being.

I hope to keep a down-to-earth focus on technology investment in Silicon Valley and some Chinese resources that we can take behind, so as to make Fusion Fund a first-tier venture capital fund in Silicon Valley in the next 10-15 years. Silicon Valley's first-line fund has not yet been launched by the Chinese. It seems that being a RMB fund is not helpful to my goal for the time being.

Of course, if RMB funds help to achieve this goal in the future, for example, invested enterprises need more domestic financial support to enter China, Zhang Lu thinks she will also consider managing RMB funds, but at the same time, she also stressed that the focus must be on the United States anyway.

The reason for being so sure is that Zhang Lu, who is deeply influenced by Silicon Valley, feels that she does not have an advantage in her domestic layout. In her view, everyone in Silicon Valley is looking for their own advantages, doing what they like and are good at, and investing.

Zhang Lu's advantage lies in his technical background. Along with other Fusion Fund partners, he also has a Stanford technical background, including an academician. This teamwork brings them closer to technology in character and believes that technology has the power to change the world. Therefore, in her view, model innovation only gives the interests of one group to another, while technology can fundamentally create new value and improve productivity and productivity.

The idea is not out of emotion. In addition to being fond of and good at technology, Zhang Lu and his team will have more logical thinking in real capital operation. As the only member of the team who can speak Chinese, Zhang Lu knows China very well, so he knows more about the investment differences between China and the United States. Model innovation has done very well by virtue of demographic dividend, rapid public acceptance and other factors. If Fusion Fund innovates its investment model in the United States and competes globally, it may not have an advantage:

When every period of history is at a juncture and the economy is in decline, technology is the only thing that can overcome the economic cycle and improve productivity and productivity. The core competitiveness of Silicon Valley leading the world is technology. As it happens, we are good at and like it, so we choose to invest in technology.

With this sufficient condition, Zhang Lu and her American partners have found in the industry that after years of accumulation and development, many technologies are not only mature, better, faster, but also cheaper. For example, the low cost of sensors and data acquisition. Both bring the possibility of commercialization, not as it did in 200 years.

2. As in 2003, the technology sounds cool, but there is no prospect of commercialization.

This confirms Zhang Lu's investment logic and strengthens her determination to stick to it.

Unfair advantages and commercialization prospects determine investment

According to the established investment logic, Fusion Fund has invested in more than 30 projects focusing on industrial and enterprise-level "intelligent industry", "network technology", "artificial intelligence" and "medical". For more than two years, I "missed" a lot of tuyere, but for Zhang Lu, tuyere is really not very important. In her view, the air outlet project may be good-looking, but whether it can maximize capital is not necessarily:

We never chase tuyere or invest in social games. When O2O was very popular in Silicon Valley, we invested in technology companies. Of course, there are no VR or drones.

The firmness and confidence between words comes from a judgment. She believes that the so-called trend is not determined by capital, but by practitioners in the industry:

When we judge the trend, we are often studying the population of practitioners. The popular "tuyere" in the media, on the surface, has a large capital and enterprise base, but behind it, it is found that entrepreneurs are entering less and less. As investors, if they are in sync with the media, what do you want us to do? It is OK for the media to invest, we have to be half a step ahead of the market reaction.

Zhang Lu explained that the early "half step" was not a guess out of thin air, and even investors who became famous in Silicon Valley could not make this judgment. And from the research on senior practitioners in a field, if people who have been immersed in this field for many years start their own businesses, and more and more, that is one direction she will focus on.

In addition, Zhang Lu believes that two aspects should be considered in deciding whether or not to invest in a project:

Unfair advantage

Just as Zhang Lu insists on investing in areas she likes and is good at, she believes that it is very important to form an "unfair advantage" in the fierce market competition. Without "unfair advantage" to form high barriers, it is difficult to break through the tight encirclement. This "unfair advantage" can be technical or resource-based, but either is a key factor in deciding whether or not to invest. This "unfair advantage" makes Zhang Lu believe that with the help of capital, the company can rise rapidly.

Commercialization prospect

While paying attention to the formation of technological barriers, Zhang Lu is also very pragmatic. Without considerable commercial prospects, Fusion Fund will not vote. Such as the process of investing in Paradromics. Paradromics is a project to make nanobots. At that time, the team and technology were very good, but they did not see the prospect of commercialization, so Fusion Fund did not invest. Six months later, the Paradromics team applied its technology to the treatment of Parkinson's dementia, and Fusion Fund immediately followed suit, and Paradromics subsequently received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

In addition, when asked whether a technical background would be a financial weakness, Zhang Lu mentioned her previous two years as a partner at Fenox and briefed Silicon Valley investors on the other.

According to the background, Silicon Valley investors are divided into two categories: those with technical background and those with financial background. The former focuses on the early entrepreneurial projects, while the latter focuses on the middle and late entrepreneurial projects. For the former, the core of the early project is technology. If you let investors with financial background look at it, it will definitely be a big one or two, and there will also be financial loopholes; while people with technical background will look at mid-and late-stage entrepreneurial projects. It certainly doesn't have any advantages in terms of finance or finance.

Like projects with "unfair advantage", their own positioning also needs to find "unfair advantage". There is no doubt that Zhang Lu, relying on her "unfair advantage", seems to have locked in the future victory in advance.

The selection activity of "New Intelligence growth list 2017" is being launched, and we will conduct large-scale reports, carding and research on the artificial intelligence and robotics industry. and jointly with dozens of well-known investment institutions to conduct in-depth selection according to the technological strength, business capabilities and growth of these innovative companies, and finally select some innovative companies with great potential for growth from a number of fields. If you want to participate in our selection, you can click on the "sign up" link, [email protected]!

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