Dr. Chen Xiangming, founder of Ginkgo Valley, talks about the investment strategy and thinking of cloud native | Cloud native accelerator perspective

A few days ago, the first phase of the cloud native accelerator roadshow jointly organized by Alibaba Cloud Cloud Native Application Platform, Alibaba Cloud Accelerator, and Alibaba Strategic Investment was held in Hangzhou. After two offline roadshows, 31 companies were successfully selected for the first phase of Alibaba Cloud's cloud native accelerator. .

In the wave of industrial digitalization, cloud native has become the general trend. In the offline roadshow of the cloud native accelerator, Dr. Chen Xiangming, founder of Ginkgo Valley, shared his thoughts on cloud native investment strategies. The following content is organized based on live speeches.

I was inspired by the Alibaba Cloud Cloud Native Accelerator project materials. Ginkgo Valley looks like a cloud native investment institution. Before that, I worked in semiconductors, and the bottom layer of cloud computing big data is semiconductors. Since Ginkgo Valley is a manufacturing background, I found that the transformation of the manufacturing industry requires some big data and artificial intelligence, so I came up with the idea of making an investment platform, thinking about whether I can invest in some entrepreneurial teams of big data and artificial intelligence, both for my own sake. Manufacturing services, and do some exploration for the transformation of Zhejiang's manufacturing industry.

With this kind of thinking, I met Dr. Wang Jian, and everyone hit it off. The two sides reached a consensus on this connection. I still remember 8 years ago, when I was thinking about how to match the resources of the manufacturing industry to the ecology of young people to make investments in data, intelligence, AI, including today's cloud-native technology teams, which is a great way for the manufacturing industry to invest. The cloud-native transformation is a great starting point. Therefore, I think Ginkgo Valley Capital is very much like an investment company in the transformation of cloud-native manufacturing industry.

Dr. Chen Xiangming, founder of Ginkgo Valley, shared at the cloud native accelerator

In 2014, Ginkgo Valley established the first fund called Ginkgo Cloud , which is also the first fund in China to name the fund Yun. At that time, the definition of cloud was not very clear, and it was somewhat vague. But I still believe very much that we all voted for what Alibaba Cloud is optimistic about, and we can vote for those who are not optimistic about Alibaba Cloud. When I kept in contact with this field later, I found that this actually has great significance for the transformation of the manufacturing industry.

When I first came into contact with this part, I found that the intelligent equipment and software in the semiconductor manufacturing process were all foreign, so I wondered whether it could be localized. The semiconductor production process is actually a cloud-native, data-driven, and fully automated manufacturing process. Everyone knows that it is impossible to establish such a process by relying on funds and domestic knowledge structure, so this also gives you a lot of inspiration.

Later, after having some understanding of cloud, especially that " the essence of cloud is to serve the industry" , Ginkgo Valley established a second fund to invest in cloud services. I told Dr. Wang Jian that cloud should serve the manufacturing industry. Only by empowering the industry can the foundation for survival and the driving force for sustainable development. But the person who understands the industry best in this area may be UFIDA. At that time, UF had 5,000 engineers. But what is the problem with UF? UFIDA understood the needs of users very well, but the products in its hands were too traditional at that time to serve the increasingly urgent needs of such manufacturing enterprises. If cloud architecture and data products can be combined with UFIDA's ecology, great vitality can be erupted.

Therefore, this fund is in cooperation with UFIDA and is named Ginkgo Sea Fund . This is also the first in the country to write in the fund rules: "All invested projects must use Alibaba Cloud". Interestingly, this fund has nothing to do with Ali, and Ali did not give Ginkgo Valley a penny, nor did he make any promises. Ginkgo Sea Fund has achieved good economic benefits today, not because of the high level of investment managers, but because it has grasped the essence of cloud, and the essence of cloud is to serve the industry. Alibaba Cloud's cloud products are very good, and UF has a very good understanding of the needs of the industry. The superposition of these two ecosystems will definitely produce unexpected chemical reactions. In the middle, Ginkgo Valley also invested in an entrepreneurial project: Shudream Factory , which is also the same concept when investing in Shudeng: In fact, we were not particularly clear about SaaS and PaaS at the time, but we saw the prospect, so we invested in Shudeng. workshop.

In fact, the development of DreamWorks also witnessed the development of cloud native. From the very beginning, DreamWorks planned to go to the cloud. After going to the cloud, it found that the enterprise service faced challenges. After several twists and turns, it finally found the essence, and gradually reconstructed the product with cloud-native ideas and architecture on the basis of practice. Shumeng finally decided to do the data chain, because the essential logic of the data chain is also a very vivid embodiment of the cloud-native architecture and thinking. For the development of cloud native, I simply share 4 feelings:

The first point is that Ginkgo Valley is more like a cloud-native investment institution, and will continue unswervingly in the future.

The second point is that cloud, big data, etc. in cloud native must serve the industry, which is unswerving. Because when I talk to too many startups, I find that the root cause is talking about cloud native. For example, the original traffic congestion in Hangzhou, the use of the new structure can reduce the congestion rate by 10%. An innovative thing must at least bring a rolling feeling and improve the efficiency by at least 50%, so that the general user can feel the body, and everyone will recognize this concept and product. Therefore, no matter how advanced the product itself is, its essence is to make the user experience subversive and the gap large enough. In fact, looking at a technical team is to see how the capabilities and products match the ecology and solve the problems of the manufacturing scene, which is very important. One of the words I often say is: Let the problems of the manufacturing scene become the treasures of technology startups and their orders.

The third point is that for cloud native, everyone needs to understand that its technological attributes are very strong, so its implementation subject is not the traditional party. The implementation subject should be the scientific and technological force with scientists and engineers as the main body. It must match resources to these people, and let them use new ideas, new technologies, and new frameworks to serve the frontier of the industry. Such a match is correct. The role of the investment company is actually to match the misallocation of resources. So from this perspective, Ginkgo Valley may be the investment company with the most cooperation with scientists in China. Ginkgo Valley has a very deep cooperation with Academician Wang Jian, Academician Gao Wen, Academician Yang Huayong, etc. We hope that through our efforts, the most cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements will be buried in an industrialization variable at the first time, and the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements will be made in advance. Prepare.

Ginkgo Valley also cooperated with Academician Shi Yigong of West Lake University. Not long ago, Ginkgo Valley invested in a very powerful team in synthetic biology, which essentially uses AI and big data to find new compound molecules. When communicating with Academician Yang Huayong, the academician said very eloquently: "It is difficult and wasteful to convert us scientific and technological personnel into entrepreneurs. We should choose some CEOs with scientific and technological attributes, such as many PhD graduates. In fact, not 100% are willing to do scientific research, there are people who are willing to do industrialization, and we can cultivate these people to interact with technology, which is of great value to the development space of the industry.”

Fourth , Ginkgo Valley will continue to be a cloud-native investment institution, and will continue to stand with Alibaba Cloud as always. I tend to invest in five types of people, such as scientists, engineers, and young scientific research workers in scientific research institutes, etc. The essence of the five types of people is technological and young people . Investing in them is to place these people in the industrial scene and the manufacturing scene. It is necessary to move a large number of engineers to the land of the motherland, to write code on the factory site, and to write an APP for the satellite to the sky.

Alibaba Cloud Cloud Native Accelerator is a good ecological linker. I hope everyone here can talk about cooperation, do ecology, and product co-construction. You can also learn from each other, contribute to the development of the industry together, and create a cloud-native future together.