"PixelBloom (AiPPT.com) Completes B2 Round Financing for the National Team, Building a Global AI Office Software Super Factory | 36Kr Exclusive"
Written by | Wang Fangyu
Edited by | Su Jianxun
36Kr has learned that the AIGC technology enterprise "PixelBloom" recently announced the completion of its Series B2 financing. This round of financing is led by the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund (managed by Shunxi Fund and Qiming Venture Capital), with well-known institutions and celebrity entrepreneurs participating. The financing will be used for product research and development, AI capability enhancement, and expansion in domestic and international markets.
This is the fifth round of financing that PixelBloom has obtained in four years.
Previously, PixelBloom has received investments from institutions and celebrity entrepreneurs such as Visual China, a listed company in the A-share market, Xinglian Capital (Z Fund of Zhipu Ecology), 36Kr, CYX Capital, Weimeng Media, XinTian Ventures, Ceyuan Ventures, YJ Capital, Sensors Data, and Wang Chuan, the co-founder of Xiaomi.
PixelBloom was founded in 2018 and is a global-oriented AI office tool incubator, dedicated to creating "the next-generation AI-native workstation for individuals and organizations".
Currently, PixelBloom's products include AiPPT.cn (domestic)/AiPPT.com (overseas), AIGC Content Middle Platform of Love Design, 365 Editor, Online Design Tool of Love Design, AiH5, Dingdang Good Memory Readlecture.cn, Visdoc.Ai, and more than 10 content creation tools with AI capabilities.
Among them, the flagship product line is the AI office product AiPPT.com. The main function of the application is to use AI to assist individuals and enterprise users in creating PPTs, which can automatically generate a PPT with one sentence, one minute, and one click. The product was launched in August 2023 and has accumulated more than 10 million users worldwide in the past 12 months.
One Sentence, Automatically Generate PPT
The operation of AiPPT.com combines common capabilities and individual requirements. For example, there are four product usage paths:
The first process is to generate with one sentence, one minute, and one click. Enter a topic, and the PPT will be automatically completed.
The second process is to upload a document, including formats such as PDF, Markdown, and mind map, to complete the automatic creation of the PPT.
The third process is to upload the articles of the official account and web links to automatically generate the PPT.
The fourth process is to import the user's personalized or company-required template to automatically beautify the PPT.
Introduction to the functions of AiPPT.com Image source: Authorized by the enterprise
In addition to providing functions such as one-click PPT generation and intelligent typesetting and beautification, AiPPT.com is also gradually transforming from a tool to an assistant, and has successively launched functions including an AI creation assistant and a digital human function, making AiPPT.com not just an AIPPT tool, but more like a creative assistant and a speaking "substitute" for users.
"Most users' needs for making PPTs are simply to present or reflect the project logic, and the requirements for professionalism are not so precise. The target users of AiPPT.com are teachers, students, white-collar workers, and other people who need to make PPTs and make presentations. It only takes 5 - 10 minutes for users to generate and simply modify a PPT," Zhao Chong, the founder and CEO of PixelBloom, told 36Kr.
According to the latest statistics from the institution AICPB.com, AiPPT.com currently ranks first in monthly visits in the domestic AiPPT vertical track, fourth in global visits, and eighth in the total list of domestic AI product web ends. The top-ranked ones are traditional giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance.
Creating an AI-native super application is the dream of all large companies and startups, and the competition in this track is extremely fierce. How can AiPPT.com break through the siege?
Zhao Chong told 36Kr that in addition to the brand name occupying the category name and naturally occupying the user's mind, an important channel for AiPPT.com to achieve user growth is to occupy all demand entrances. It is not a competitive relationship with large companies, but a partner.
"Most of the AIPPT tools that you see on the market are essentially the capabilities we provide behind the scenes," Zhao Chong said. Since October 2023, AiPPT.com has opened its API and packaged it for output to partners in all user scenarios. From the perspective of large companies, in terms of time window, product maturity, and user experience, there is no need to spend time and economic costs to develop similar products on the application end.
It is reported that AiPPT.com has currently established extensive cooperation with multiple types of manufacturers.
AiPPT establishes cooperation with various manufacturers Image source: Authorized by the enterprise
The first type is large model manufacturers. AiPPT.com has reached a product-level strategic cooperation with Kimi of the Dark Side of the Moon to create a seamless PPT production experience for users. In addition, AiPPT.com has also reached a strategic cooperation with Qingyan of Zhipu to achieve the integration of technology and resources. As a leading large model company in China, Zhipu can help AiPPT.com achieve customized development based on the technical base and provide more accurate AI capabilities.
The second type is hardware manufacturers, such as Lenovo and Honor. The comprehensive cooperation with Lenovo integrates the AiPPT product into the Lenovo ecosystem, making it the only official AIPPT application of Lenovo's intelligent assistant Xiaotian, providing Lenovo PC users with an ultimate new AI office experience.
The third type is chip manufacturers, such as AMD and Intel. The application of AiPPT.com can still be used in an offline environment. This cooperation makes the application scenarios of AiPPT.com more extensive, not limited to the online environment, improving the user experience and further expanding the market share.
The fourth type is Internet giants, including Doubao, Dingding, and many vertical industry partners. For example, the AiPPT Government and Enterprise Edition jointly created by "AiPPT.com" and People.cn.
"There are about 7.8 million civil servants, 30 million institutional staff, and 50 million employees of state-owned enterprises and central enterprises in China. They have special language requirements for writing PPTs. We cooperate with People.cn, which provides a corpus. At the same time, we deploy all services on the People's Media Cloud to fundamentally solve the data security problem in the Party and government industry. Next, we also plan to launch the financial version and the medical version. These industry versions can be equipped with special knowledge bases in the industry to meet the specific needs in the industry," Zhao Chong told 36Kr.
Many overseas players are also using the API of AiPPT.com. For example, a very popular AI search product Felo in Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan recently. After users use AI search to generate an outline, they can click a button to turn the outline into a PPT.
It is reported that as of now, AiPPT.com has received the favor of more than 300 + ecological partners, jointly promoting the ecological growth of AiPPT.com.
More Than Just PPT, Building an AI Office Software Ecosystem
Based on the business of AiPPT.com, in the past half year, PixelBloom has begun to shift from a single product to a platform strategy, expanding the product line to AI Native WorkStation and upgrading the organizational form to AI Venture Studio (a top - down entrepreneurship and investment model).
"The product positioning of PixelBloom is the next - generation AI workstation for individuals and organizations. In response to user needs, we hope to adopt the Venture Studio model, making the company an incubator. Through the managers in charge of each product line, the company provides the capabilities of product engineering, user growth, and operational monetization to quickly iterate and optimize AI applications to better serve users," Zhao Chong said.
For example, "Dingdang Good Memory" (Readlecture.cn) is a product that PixelBloom has recently invested in. Its main function is to condense a two - hour YouTube or Bilibili lecture video into a graphic and text content that can be viewed within five minutes.
Specifically at the product level, PixelBloom is committed to building a complete AI office software ecosystem, making AiPPT not just a tool, but an office assistant that integrates multi - modal AI content creation and editing, external knowledge bases, vertical industry AI search, and content management collaboration.
In addition to software, PixelBloom is also laying out the AI hardware market.
"We hope to not only occupy the user's computer / mobile phone desktop by making software, but also the desk. For example, our listed AI voice intelligent mouse is built with our AI software. In the Prompt input stage, users only need to press the AI button on the mouse to directly input by voice. In the future, we will also create an intelligent hardware matrix such as keyboards and headphones, and cooperate with software to bring users a better AI office closed - loop experience," Zhao Chong told 36Kr.
In terms of marketing strategy, PixelBloom has been vigorously laying out the overseas market since the beginning of 2024, aiming to connect global users through AI technology and provide cross - regional and cross - cultural office solutions.
It is reported that AiPPT.com has launched more than 10 language versions, covering more than 180 countries and regions.
Interfaces of different overseas versions of AiPPT.com Image source: Authorized by the enterprise
In 2023, the total global smart office market size reached 64 billion US dollars, approximately 400 billion yuan. Under the AI wave, this market is being reconstructed by AI technology, and this process also brings new growth opportunities for new players, including PixelBloom.
In terms of the team, the core management team of PixelBloom is composed of senior professionals from Internet giants and well - known industrial parties, with rich entrepreneurial experience and industry experience. Among them, the founder and CEO Zhao Chong, as a serial entrepreneur, is an EMBA from the Wudaokou School of Finance, Tsinghua University. In 2023, he was selected as the Hurun U40 Chinese Entrepreneurship Pioneer. In the past decade, he led a team of hundreds of people to provide user growth and brand marketing services for almost all Internet giants and leading brands in various industries.
"With the continuous development of AI technology and the expansion of application scenarios, we believe that all workflows are worth redoing with AI," Zhao Chong said. PixelBloom will continue to deeply cultivate the field of AI office tools, create multi - product line AI office tools through the investment + incubation model, and provide more intelligent and efficient office experiences for global users, promoting the development of the AI office industry.
In the previous Series B1 financing before this round, PixelBloom received investments from Visual China, a listed company in the A - share market, Xinglian Capital (Z Fund of Zhipu Ecology), and 36Kr. They respectively hold leadership positions in the content copyright field, the large model field, and the technology media field. In addition to providing capital support, they also assist in providing comprehensive support in terms of copyright material resources, large model and AIGC capabilities, expanding brand influence, market expansion, and customer acquisition.
With the support of the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund with a national team background in this round, PixelBloom will accelerate product innovation, expand market coverage, and deepen cooperation with ecological partners. Through continuous product innovation and market expansion, it will bring users a more intelligent and efficient AI office experience and promote the development of the AI office industry.
Investor's Perspective:
The Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund stated: Finding the right landing application scenarios for large model technology and achieving healthy commercialization results is the key development direction for the next stage of the AI industry. PixelBloom has entered the origin market with its revolutionary AI office products and achieved a leading position, completed the transformation from a single product to a platform strategy, and made the leap from a tool provider to an ecosystem builder. It represents an excellent enterprise of China's new AI productivity to participate in global competition, fully demonstrating PixelBloom's leadership position and huge potential in the AI office field.