Li Kaifu takes action, 01AI is split up again and again | Exclusive from Intelligent Emergence
(This article is an exclusive report by Intelligent Emergence. If citing or reprinting, please be sure to indicate the source. Infringement will be prosecuted!)
Written by Zhou Xinyu
Edited by Su Jianxun
Intelligent Emergence has learned from multiple independent sources that AI unicorn 01Everything founded by Kai-Fu Lee has recently undergone many internal changes:
The plan is to split the digital human business, led by Yang Changpeng, the head of the digital human business R & D of 01Everything.
Lan Yuchuan, the head of the 01Everything AI video remix project, has left to start a business. The new project SparkView is an AI video editing tool.
In response to the above information, 01Everything replied to Intelligent Emergence: 01Everything had an income of more than 100 million yuan last year, and this year it will grow rapidly. 01Everything is not only continuously launching more applications to explore value. In this process, 01Everything will also quickly adjust the project according to the market PMF, including strengthening the investment in some businesses, encouraging projects with commercial potential to conduct independent financing, and also including shutting down some projects.
After giving up the "super-large model", 01 needs to rely on split financing for "blood transfusion"
For 01Everything, the beginning of 2025 starts with cooperation and splitting.
Cooperating with powerful giants is an important part for 01Everything to remain in the large model game. After jointly establishing an industrial large model joint laboratory with Alibaba Cloud, 01Everything has placed its ambition to layout the large model in Suzhou, jointly establishing an industrial large model base with Suzhou High-tech Zone.
On the other hand of cooperation is business splitting. As the first business to be split, the digital human is because it is one of the businesses with the strongest monetization ability of 01Everything at present.
Many industry insiders believe that the digital human market is large enough, and with the resource accumulation of Kai-Fu Lee and Qi Ruifeng, the co-founder and sales director of 01Everything, it is not difficult to get signed orders.
In fact, "splitting" has been the main theme of 01Everything's structural adjustment in the past two years. In 2024, 01Everything made some moves in business splitting.
Business registration information shows that on September 13, 2024, 01Everything established a subsidiary called "01 Oasis", whose main business is related to AI games, and Ma Jie, the co-founder and vice president of 01Everything, serves as the chairman.
As Intelligent Emergence understands, Splitting different businesses, operating independently and generating income independently is actually the blood-making strategy of 01Everything after integrating the core pre-training team.
Intelligent Emergence once exclusively reported that in mid-December 2024, 01Everything laid off the pre-training algorithm team and the Infra team. At the end of December 2024, Alibaba's Tongyi and Intelligent Cloud teams respectively provided job offers to the pre-training algorithm team and the Infra team.
In this regard, Kai-Fu Lee told Intelligent Emergence, 01Everything believes that the cost-effectiveness of investing in the super-large model pre-training for a startup is too low, and the company will turn to the pre-training of a more lightweight model.
As for why it needs to rely on the means of splitting to "generate income", many industry insiders told Intelligent Emergence that 01Everything, which integrates the pre-training team, already needs a new story to obtain financing.
Regarding the consideration of splitting the business,Kai-Fu Lee once responded to Intelligent Emergence: It can focus more on the business and can share the cost of central R & D. As for the criteria for business splitting, it is "to first talk to investors to see if anyone is willing to invest".
At the end of 2024, the "Six Tigers" are raising "winter funds" for themselves: Zhipu completed a 3 billion yuan financing, and Jietuo Xingchen completed a several-hundred-million-dollar Series B financing. According to several informed sources, Baichuan Intelligence and MiniMax, in addition to promoting financing, also have businesses that can generate income, and there is sufficient money in their accounts.
01Everything disclosed its last round of financing in August 2024, which was a several-hundred-million-dollar investment participated by an international strategic investor and a Southeast Asian consortium. Since then, there has been no public financing progress. As Intelligent Emergence understands, the financing of 01Everything is in progress.
Early members start their own businesses, focusing on AI video editing
Lan Yuchuan, who recently left to start a business, is also an early member of 01Everything. He was originally responsible for the large model API open platform at 01Everything, and then transferred to be responsible for the growth of PopAi and Mona, the two main products of 01Everything, as well as the AI video remix project of 01Everything.
Lan Yuchuan. Source: Official account of 01Everything
PopAi is an AI office application for overseas markets of 01Everything, while Mona is an emotional companion product for overseas markets. Since the establishment of 01Everything, Kai-Fu Lee has repeatedly mentioned that the product strategy of 01Everything is to do To C business overseas.
As Intelligent Emergence understands, as of the first half of 2024, 01Everything has established 6 To C product project teams.
However, in the second half of 2024, except for PopAi, whose ROI (Return on Investment) is close to being positive, the other products of 01Everything have gradually been shut down, operated and maintained, or merged. Many 01Everything employees told Intelligent Emergence that except for the acceptable performance of PopAi, the trials of some products were not very successful.
Frequent adjustments have led to a wave of employee resignations at 01Everything in the second half of 2024.
It is understood that in August 2024, most of the core members of PopAi chose to resign, including Cao Dapeng, the early leader of PopAi and the head of the productivity product of 01Everything. After that, Zhao Binqiang (Alibaba nickname: Letian), an early senior algorithm expert of Alibaba, took over his position.
An informed person told Intelligent Emergence that Lan Yuchuan chose to resign because he wanted to do a new direction different from the products of 01Everything.
Lan Yuchuan's new project SparkView focuses on a direction that has been verified in the overseas market: AI video editing. As Intelligent Emergence understands, SparkView is also a product project initiated by 01Everything in the second half of 2024.
Previously, OpusClip, an AI video editing tool founded by a Chinese engineer, broke through 5 million users in 7 months and achieved an ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) of nearly 10 million US dollars.
According to several investors who have contacted Lan Yuchuan, SparkView plans to start from short-video advertising materials to be an AI Video Agent (AI Video Intelligence Entity).
Before joining 01Everything, Lan Yuchuan served as a senior director of product solutions at Feishu and also had entrepreneurial experience. Intelligent Emergence has learned that SparkView has already started financing.
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