Meituan is making "hard investment": robots, intelligent hardware, and ideal cars

美团是一家科技公司吗？

Is meituan a technology company?

如果你只看到街上到处都是黄色的车手-不是真的。

If you only see yellow riders all over the streets - not really.

在1967部电影《毕业生》中，主角在大学毕业后很困惑，不知道该怎么办。一位长者告诉他，"就一个字，塑料"。当时，塑料是一项非常新的技术。人们称之为可以颠覆人类生活的物质。事实上，是的。

In a 1967 film "graduate", the protagonist is very confused after graduating from university and does not know what to do. An elder tells him, "just one word, plastics". At that time, plastic was a very new technology. People called it a material that could subvert human life. In fact, it was.

在智能手机普及之前，人们对科技的认知非常狭隘。那时，技术就是工厂里的数控设备，或者天空中的火箭和空间站的代名词。当移动互联网或人工智能被认为是一种幻想时，外卖甚至不在幻想未来生活场景的范围之内。

Before the popularity of smart phones, people's perception of technology was very narrow. At that time, technology was synonymous with numerical control equipment in factories, or rockets and space stations in the sky. When the mobile Internet or artificial intelligence is considered a fantasy, takeout is not even within the scope of the fantasy of the future life scene.

但在科学技术进步的同时，科学技术与人类生活的互动也在不断深化。

But at the same time with the progress of science and technology, the interaction between science and technology and human life is also deepening.

当塑料完全融入人类生活时，它的科技感就消失了，把塑料与"高分子材料"这个前沿名字联系起来的人越来越少。

When plastics are fully integrated into human life, its sense of science and technology disappears, and even fewer and fewer people associate plastics with the cutting-edge name of "polymer materials".

火箭上天或塑料合成都是技术。这也是一种按时向顾客提供食物的技术。只是这种技术，因为其隐藏在服务背后的工具属性，看似看不见，其实更贴近我们的生活。

Rocket to the sky or plastic synthesis are technologies. It's also technology to deliver food to customers on time. It's just that such technology, because of its tool properties hidden behind services, seems invisible, but it is actually closer to our lives.

"不管一项技术多么令人兴奋，它只是达到目的的手段，而不是目的本身。我们的目标是实现我们的使命。我们的使命是"帮助人们吃得更好，生活得更好。"。因此，如何看待和使用技术是关键。"王兴如说。

"No matter how exciting a technology is, it's just a means to an end, not the end itself. Our goal is to realize our mission. Our mission is to "help people eat better and live better.". So how to look at and use technology is the key. " Wang Xingru said.

为了完成这一使命，我们需要依靠科学技术。如此看来，美团无疑是一家科技公司，因为它的使命包含着科技。

To achieve this mission, we need to rely on science and technology. In this way, meituan is undoubtedly a technology company, because its mission contains technology.

科技投入浮出水面

Science and technology investment comes to the surface

其实，不难回答美团的科技含量在哪里。

In fact, it is not difficult to answer where the scientific and technological content of meituan lies.

去年8月，美团日均发货订单数突破4000万。截至去年，美团平台的客流量已经达到950万。

Last August, the number of meituan daily delivery orders exceeded 40 million. As of last year, the number of riders on meituan platform has reached 9.5 million.

这背后是世界上最大的订单分配和调度系统。其中，海量数据处理和订单分配的算法难度不言而喻。相应地，美团目前拥有中国最大的软件工程师团队之一，拥有超过10000名工程师。

Behind this is the largest order distribution and scheduling system in the world. Among them, the algorithm difficulty of huge data processing and order allocation is self-evident. Correspondingly, meituan currently has one of the largest software engineer teams in China, with more than 10000 engineers.

这是美团成长的基础，也是公司最明显的技术属性。

This is the foundation of meituan's growth, and also the most obvious technological attribute of this company.

Smalltalk的原设计师Alan Kay曾经说过："如果你关心你的软件能力，你就需要制造硬件，否则这个硬件（能力）就是你软件能力的边界"，这就可以解释美团5年前开始投资研发无人飞行器的原因。另一方面，如果说"软件"和"硬件"的定义受制于"技术"的定义，那么对于一个技术公司来说，行走的两腿往往变成了"自主研究"和"合作"，但除此之外，还有一只无形的"投资"之手，它就隐藏在背后。

Alan Kay, the original designer of Smalltalk, once said, "if you care about your software capabilities, you need to make hardware, otherwise this hardware (capability) is the boundary of your software capabilities." This can explain why meituan started to invest in the research and development of unmanned vehicles five years ago. On the other hand, if the definition of "software" and "hardware" is constrained by the definition of "technology", then for a technology company, the two legs of walking often become "self research" and "cooperation", but in addition, there is the invisible hand of "investment", which is hidden behind.

图片来源：美团

Photo source: meituan

目前，美团通过自主研发、合作投资等方式，建立了无人配送的生态布局，主要涉及室内、半封闭式公园、开放式道路三大重要场景。美团专注于户外场景L4级自动驾驶技术的自主研发和探索，通过投资合作，覆盖室内和半封闭式公园。

At present, meituan has established the ecological layout of unmanned distribution by means of self research, cooperation and investment, mainly involving three important scenes: indoor, semi closed Park and open road. Meituan focuses on its own research and Exploration on L4 level automatic driving technology in outdoor scenes, and covers indoor and semi closed parks through investment and cooperation.

如果说平台计算能力或无人车是将美团科技的标签贴上光明之地的产物，那么美团近年来的投资行为则鲜为人知。

If the platform computing power or the unmanned vehicle is the product of putting the meituan technology label on the bright place, the investment actions of meituan in recent years are rarely known.

机器人、智能硬件，再加上一辆理想的汽车（当然，新能源汽车使用的核心技术其实和智能机器人是一样的）——与其他同等规模的互联网公司相比，美团大战投资的投资策略显得更加清晰，这主要得益于其相对集中的投资策略。

Robots, intelligent hardware, plus an ideal car (of course, the core technology used by new energy vehicles is actually the same as that of intelligent robots) - compared with other Internet companies of the same size, the investment strategy of meituan war investment looks much clearer, which is largely due to its relatively focused investment strategy.

商界的投资有两种：一种是金融投资，即单纯看好一家公司的成长及其带来的财务回报。从这个角度看，这种投资的范围可以是多种多样的；二是战略投资。除了考虑被投资方自身的成长性外，也意味着投资者期望公司未来从业务或产品层面实现协同效应。

There are two types of investment in the business world: one is financial investment, that is, purely optimistic about the growth of a company and the financial returns it brings. From this point of view, the scope of such investment can be varied; The other is strategic investment. In addition to considering the growth of the investee itself, it also means that investors expect the company to achieve synergy from the business or product level in the future.

从投资行为来看，美团更倾向于后者。

From the investment behavior, meituan is more inclined to the latter.

对未来的投资

Investment to the future

在美团的科技投资中，最著名的是理想汽车。

Among meituan's investments in technology, the most famous one is the ideal car.

2020年7月，理想汽车获得美团5.5亿美元的D轮融资，这是美团对理想汽车的第二笔投资。美团是理想汽车2019年5.3亿美元C轮融资的主要投资者。

In July 2020, ideal automobile obtained a round D financing of US $550 million from meituan, which is meituan's second investment in ideal automobile. Meituan is the leading investor in the $530 million C round financing of ideal Auto in 2019.

这两项投资完成后，美团以5.8%的表决权成为理想汽车的实际第二大股东。

After the completion of these two investments, meituan became the actual second largest shareholder of ideal automobile, with 5.8% of the voting rights.

外界往往将美团对理想汽车的兴趣解读为分销技术中的一个想象空间。但王兴的期待显然不止于此。

The outside world often interprets meituan's interest in the ideal car as an imaginary space in the distribution technology. But Wang Xing's expectation is obviously more than that.

"未来，在车里可以实现的生活方式，将不亚于智能手机带来的便利。"

"In the future, the lifestyle that can be realized in a car will be no less convenient than that brought by a smart phone."

言下之意，王兴石把理想的汽车视为生活方式的载体，二者在无人驾驶技术方面有着第一次的重叠。此外，理想的汽车是实现车内语音识别等交互技术，这将创造更广阔的线下生活场景。

The implication is that Wang Xingshi regards the ideal car as a carrier of lifestyle, and the two have the first overlap in terms of driverless technology. In addition, the ideal car is making the implementation of interactive technology such as in car speech recognition, which will create a wider offline life scene.

试想，未来理想的车主可以通过车载语音助手在车内点一顿带美团外卖的饭，这看起来比麦当劳的自驾车更具未来感。但场景的想象远不止这些。例如，在车内通过语音识别技术下外卖订单后，无人送货车或机器人会将食物送到主人手中。

Imagine that the ideal car owner in the future can order a meal with meituan takeout in the car through the car voice assistant, which looks more futuristic than McDonald's drive thru. But the imagination of the scene goes beyond that. For example, after placing an order for takeout through voice recognition technology in the car, an unmanned delivery vehicle or robot will deliver the food to the owner.

理想汽车创造的新车场景，不仅代表了中国制造业实力在过去几年的提升，也提升了作为良好产业参与者的国内产业链的完整性。在自动驾驶方面，尤其是在无人配送方面，为美团等业务形态的企业提供行业支撑，战略投资价值凸显。

The new car scene created by ideal car not only represents the improvement of China's manufacturing strength in the past few years, but also improves the completeness of domestic industrial chain as a good industry participant. It can provide industry support in automatic driving, especially in unmanned distribution for companies with such business form as meituan, so the strategic investment value is highlighted.

机器人——这是美团战略投资地图的核心。

Robotics - this is the core of meituan's strategic investment map.

图片来源：unsplash

Image source: unsplash

王兴曾在财报电话会议上表示，机器人是美团投资的重点垂直领域之一。机器人作为一种智能硬件，具有非常重要的地位。在包括机器人在内的各种先进技术的推动下，生活服务领域在提高效率和降低成本方面仍有很大的潜力。

Wang Xing once said in the financial report telephone conference that robots are one of the key vertical fields of meituan investment. As an intelligent hardware, robot is very important. Driven by various advanced technologies including robot, there is still great potential in the field of life services to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

"2020年下半年，我们投资了一些初创企业。所有公司都有一个共同的名字，其中包含"机器人"。机器人对我们很重要。机器人意味着智能硬件。我对服务业的机器人技术比较乐观。"

"In the second half of 2020, we have invested in some start-up companies. All companies have a common name, which contains" robotics ". Robots are very important to us. Robots mean intelligent hardware. I'm more optimistic about robotics in the service industry. "

美团投资的公司中，有五家与机器人有关。最近一次是美团战略投资部在今年5月参与了普渡科技5亿元C轮融资，这也是美团第三次向普渡科技注资。

Among the companies meituan has invested in, five are related to robots. The most recent move is that meituan's strategic investment department participated in the 500 million yuan round C financing of Purdue technology in May this year, which is also the third capital injection of meituan into Purdue technology.

普渡科技是一家专注于室内配送机器人领域的知名公司，专注于机器人的研发、设计和生产。其围绕核心技术研发的低速自驾配送机器人产品，在餐饮、酒店等领域找到了应用场景，在同类型配送机器人市场处于领先地位。

Purdue technology is a well-known company focusing on the field of indoor distribution robots, focusing on the R & D, design and production of robots. Its low-speed self driving distribution robot products around the core technology have found application scenarios in restaurants and hotels, and are in a leading position in the same type of distribution robot market.

除普渡科技外，美团自2020年开始在整个机器人领域密集投资，先后投资了高县机器人、飞溪机器人、银河机器人。今年1月，美团战略投资部收购的盈和科技估值超过30亿元。

In addition to Purdue technology, meituan has invested intensively in the whole robot field since 2020, successively investing in Gaoxian robot, Feixi robot and Yinghe robot. In January this year, Yinghe technology, which was acquired by meituan's strategic investment department, was valued at more than 3 billion yuan.

值得一提的是，上述对盈和科技的投资也体现在美团之外。各大互联网公司的投资似乎都超越了自己的"界限"，而从美团在科技领域的投资布局来看，战略协同的意图更加明显。至此，美团战机投资已悄然成为企业战机投资最多的投资机器人。

It is worth mentioning that the above-mentioned investment in Yinghe technology is also reflected outside meituan. Major Internet companies are making investments that seem to go beyond their own "boundaries", and from the investment layout of meituan in the field of science and technology, the intention of strategic synergy is more obvious. So far, meituan war investment has quietly become the enterprise war investment with the most investment robots.

在一定程度上，COVID-19推进了无人飞行器的发展。在广州疫情重演的过程中，许多互联网公司都派出无人车队前往广州支援（包括美国团）。这些无人驾驶飞行器中的大部分激光雷达硬件由激光雷达制造商husai technology提供。

To a certain extent, COVID-19 promoted the scene of the unmanned vehicle. In the repetition of the epidemic in Guangzhou, many Internet Co have dispatched unmanned convoys to Guangzhou for support (including the US regiment). Most of the lidar hardware in these unmanned vehicles is provided by laser radar manufacturer husai technology.

公司近日宣布完成超过3亿美元的D轮融资，美团也是此轮融资的主要投资者之一。美团的硬科技投资布局又添一笔。

The company announced the completion of more than 300 million US dollars in round D financing recently, and meituan is also one of the leading investors in this round. Meituan's hard science and technology investment layout adds another sum.

硬技术正在成为一个热点

Hard technology is becoming a hot spot

近年来，中国涌现出越来越多的优质科技企业。互联网巨头在发展自己的同时，也需要更早地找到这些公司，才能找到最好的商业模式和最好的团队。

In recent years, more and more high-quality technology companies are emerging in China. While Internet giants are developing themselves, they also need to find these companies earlier to find the best business model and the best team in the track.

硬技术在整个行业的质量和数量加速增长的原因是多方面的。在外部环境中，由于国际政治形势的变化，一些具有国家战略的核心领域对国内替代的需求显得尤为迫切。比如华为被列入实体名单后，凸显了整个集成电路和半导体产业在国家层面的战略意义。未来，中国在各个技术领域都将有非常强劲的国内替代需求。每一条赛道都在呼唤国产产品。本土化、自主研发成为科技产业的主题。在所有的互联网公司中，美团是真正扎根国内市场，没有任何国际业务的公司。深耕本土市场、渗透行业供应链的行业服务经验，也增加了美团找到国内新兴科技品牌的概率。

There are many reasons for the acceleration of quality and quantity of hard technology in the industry as a whole. In the external environment, due to changes in the international political situation, the demand for domestic substitution in some core areas with national strategy has become particularly urgent. For example, after Huawei was listed in the entity list, it highlights the strategic significance of the entire integrated circuit and semiconductor industry at the national level. In the future, China will have a very strong demand for domestic substitution in various technology segments. Every track is calling for domestic products. Localization and independent research and development have become the theme of science and technology industry. Among all the Internet companies, meituan is the one that really takes root in the domestic market and does not have any international business. The industry service experience of deeply cultivating the local market and penetrating the supply chain of an industry also increases the probability of meituan finding those emerging domestic technology brands.

金融市场也开始为科技产业的发展提供空间，因此随着科技创新委员会的成立，以及一系列有利于科技产业发展的政策和金融支持计划，大型投资机构和国有金融机构开始支持越来越多的科技领域的早期初创企业。对于投资者来说，宏观层面的需求往往带来一个行业的快速发展，而硬技术的研发和创新正是在这种背景下逐步加速的。换言之，美团曾经是一家符合宏观环境的快速成长的初创公司。它始于移动互联网的发展，其快速发展得益于中国政府近十年来对科技创新的鼓励。

The financial market also began to provide space for the development of science and technology industry, so with the establishment of the science and technology innovation board, as well as a series of policies and financial support plans conducive to the development of science and technology industry, large investment institutions and state-owned financial institutions began to support more and more early start-ups in the field of science and technology. For investors, the macro level demand often brings about the rapid development of an industry, and the R & D and innovation of hard technology is gradually accelerating under this background. In other words, meituan used to be a fast-growing start-up company in line with the macro environment. It started with the development of mobile Internet, and its rapid development benefited from the Chinese government's encouragement for scientific and technological innovation in the past decade.

除了芯片，美团在以激光雷达为代表的智能硬件领域的投资，以及自主驾驶和机器人的产业前景尚不成熟。换句话说，年轻的国内公司有机会在国际市场上获得发言权。纵观美团投资的公司，有一个非常大的特点，就是这些公司的技术具有一定的前沿性和领先性，有些公司甚至看不到短期内进行业务合作的可能性。然而，这些企业几乎都是本国轨道技术领域的领军企业，甚至有成为全球优质企业的潜力。如盈和机器人主要开发国家应急管理和城市治理的机器人产品集群。这种平台机器人的商业化不仅为时尚早，而且银河成立才一年，是一家绝对年轻的公司。美团在投资策略上一向耐心而长远。企业家和他们一起成长是非常合适的。

In addition to chips, meituan's investment in intelligent hardware represented by lidar, as well as the industry prospects of autonomous driving and robot are not yet mature. In other words, young domestic companies have the opportunity to gain a say in the international market. Looking at the invested companies of meituan, there is a very big characteristic that the technology of these companies has certain cutting-edge and leading edge, and some of them can't even see the possibility of business collaboration in the short term. However, almost all of these enterprises are domestic leaders in their own track and technology fields, and even have the potential to become global high-quality enterprises. For example, Yinghe robot mainly develops robot product clusters for national emergency management and urban governance. Not only is it too early for the business of this kind of platform robot to be commercialized, but Yinghe has only been established for one year and is an absolutely young company. Meituan has always been patient and long-term in its investment strategy. It's very suitable for entrepreneurs to grow up with them.

图片来源：詹库海洛

Photo source: zhanku Hailuo

另一方面，在国际形势和疫情的共同影响下，大批海外高端科技人才决定回国创业。科技产业不同于消费。它需要上下游产业链的完整性，也需要更高的人才素质。

On the other hand, under the common influence of the international situation and the epidemic situation, a large number of overseas high-end scientific and technological talents decided to return home to start their own businesses in the field of science and technology. Science and technology industry is different from consumption. It needs the completeness of the upstream and downstream industrial chain, and it also requires higher quality of talents.

根据投资机构的统计，中国为世界贡献了最多的科技相关领域的工程师，现在这些人才回国创业的比例越来越高。近两年，整个硬科技领域的创业项目质量明显提高，近年来，高校学术界人才进军行业的趋势明显。与此同时，华为、百度、大江等国内优秀科技企业的技术人才和部分核心高管也在近两年形成了自主创业的浪潮。

According to the statistics of investment institutions, China has contributed the largest number of engineers in science and technology related fields to the world, and now the proportion of these talents returning home to start businesses is increasing. In the past two years, the quality of entrepreneurship projects in the whole hard science and technology field has improved significantly, and in recent years, the trend of talents from academic circles of colleges and universities marching into the industry is obvious. At the same time, the technical talents and some core executives of excellent domestic science and technology enterprises, such as Huawei, Baidu, Dajiang, etc., have also formed a wave of independent entrepreneurship in the past two years.

这些拥有高素质技术能力和行业认可度的创业团队，正在加速整个行业的发展，并逐步将机器人和自主驾驶相关的硬技术产业变成投资的沃土。

These entrepreneurial teams with high-quality technical ability and industry endorsement are speeding up the development of the whole industry, and gradually turning the hard technology industry related to robots and autonomous driving into a fertile land for investment.

在这样的热潮中，所有希望引领未来的科技公司都希望站在这些年轻团队的身后。作为一家科技公司，美团自然不能缺席。

In such an upsurge, all technology companies that want to lead to the future want to stand behind these young teams. As a technology company, meituan naturally can't be absent.

这些以硬技术为重点的投资行动，正如王兴所说，最终将回归美团的使命。从长远来看，这些清晰的投资步骤将在生活场景中逐渐结出硕果，美团作为一家科技公司的品质最终会显现出来。

These investment actions focusing on hard technology, as Wang Xing said, will eventually return to the mission of meituan. In a longer-term perspective, these clear-cut investment steps will gradually bear fruit in the life scene, and the quality of meituan as a technology company will eventually show up.

Link：https://new.qq.com/omn/20210630/20210630A03D3Z00.html

update time：2021-06-30 18:57:19