Star Enterprise Purdue technology layoffs: Tencent Sequoia was a shareholder who raised more than 1billion

RedI network   Lei Jianping  7 month 5 Reported Wednesday

How hot it used to be , How lonely it is now .

In the near future , Star business service robot Purdue technology was exposed to massive layoffs . This is a 2022 Another layoff since , It may be cut to only 500 people , Only “ Basic plate for meal delivery ”.

Purdue technology in 2016 Established in Shenzhen in , So far, , Purdue technology has received several rounds of financing , The total amount exceeds one billion yuan , tencent 、 Sequoia China 、 Meituan 、 Deep investment control 、 Strategic investors such as Dawan district fund continue to increase investment .

among ,2020 year 7 Month to 8 month , Purdue technology received 100 million yuan B Round of funding , And nearly 100 million yuan B+ Round of funding , And in 2021 year 5 The month and 9 Complete... In June C1 Wheel and C2 Round of funding ,C The cumulative financing amount of this round is nearly 10 One hundred million yuan .

2022 year 2 month , Founder and founder of Purdue Technology CEO Zhang Tao also said in an interview , The company is developing rapidly , Purdue technology has employees 2000+, In addition to Shenzhen headquarters , Still in Beijing 、 Chengdu and other cities have subsidiaries 12 Above home .

The capital market has entered winter

Founder and concurrently of Purdue Technology CEO Zhang Tao recently issued a letter to all staff , The letter says , Live for the company , After a long discussion , Have to make a difficult decision , Slimming down the company's business and team . Maybe everyone has heard ：“ The economic situation is too bad ”,“ It's too hard to live ”, But it may not feel the same .

“ As an entrepreneur , I realized it very early , The capital market has entered winter , Even if we are here “ Chaoyang industry ”, therefore , Last year, I was thinking deeply with the team management team ‘ How to spend the winter ’ The problem of .”

Zhang Tao said ,2022 In, the company did some business and personnel “ Slimming ” adjustment , Including the upcoming one , Team slimming is very important to the management of the company , It's normal , Life often ups and downs , How can it be easy to be a company . But when such a decision has to happen in their own company , As the founder of the company , This is also a huge emotional impact on himself .

“ The old employees of the company should know , Since the company's founding , I have experienced several periods of very difficult capital , Although there were external or internal voices to be optimized , But I firmly did not agree , Include 2020 In the first half of the year when the epidemic just occurred , The company's life hangs on the line , All staff are frugal, and half of their salary is postponed , Final , With the joint efforts of all of you , The company overcame many difficulties and came back to life , During this period, no colleague left .”

Zhang said , Today, we also try our best to protect our customers to the greatest extent 、 partners 、 staff 、 Interests of shareholders , But it's not what it used to be , The size of the company is getting larger , Its personal and corporate responsibilities and missions are also growing , Today's capital market has reached its worst time , The company has to make some adjustments , In the process of adjustment , Have to carry out the company's decision with guilt and pain , Let some colleagues graduate from the company , Go out to excellent companies to shine .

The whole industry of commercial service robots failed to make profits

In this letter, Zhang Tao pointed out some problems of commercial service robots ：

The commercial robot industry is from 2016 Sprout around the year , experience 2016 Year to 2019 Year of PMF verification , To 2020 After all, it will have a rapid development after 20 years , This year, there will be nearly ten companies with sales between 1 Million to 10 The first tier company with 100 million yuan , And sales between 2000 Wan to 1 Dozens of second tier companies with billion yuan .

Under the support of capital , The valuation of Companies in the commercial robot industry has also risen , There are many companies with valuations between 10 Million dollars to 20 $100 million Unicorn company , But there is still a soul problem to be solved in the commercial robot industry , That is the unrealized profits of the whole industry .

Make money by running the main business , Is the essence of business , So from the perspective of business essence , So far , The entire commercial robot industry has not reached the pass line .

When the capital market is good , The problem that commercial robot companies are not making money is covered up , But since the 2021 Since the end of , The global capital market has taken a sharp turn for the worse , In the international political and economic environment 、 The war 、 Epidemic situation for many years 、 Under the joint action of multiple factors such as macroeconomic cycle , The current capital market may be at a trough once in decades .

In such an environment , This year, the number and amount of domestic equity financing fell precipitously .

Zhang said ：“ We can't take chances , Hope for the recovery of the capital market , Because this reduction is long-term , How to get the profit model through as soon as possible , Make profits as soon as possible 、 Achieve sustainable business . Only commercial robot companies that can make profits by themselves , To cross the cycle , Live in this long cold winter .”

Zhang Tao talked about his understanding of financing ： The financing of the company is scientific + Artistic problems , It is not generally understood that the more financing rounds or financing amounts, the better , Financing is just a lever or accelerator in the development process of the company , The operation of the company finally needs to return to the commercial essence , Make money by main business . The company is alive , In essence, we live by business , Instead of living on Financing .

Zhang Tao's reflection points out the common dilemma faced by the commercial robot industry , But at the same time , It also avoids some problems of the company's operation .

Suspected Purdue technology employees pointed out , The root of all the chaos in the company is the pattern of the company boss , from 2021 Become a year “ Pig in the tuyere ”, Crazy expansion , Bloated out of shape , After you sing, I will appear , Leave a pile of bad debts , By the end of the year, I found something wrong , Started layoffs and adjustments for up to half a year , But it's all too late , The company is finally 6 End of month , I can't hold it completely .

“ In the process of entrepreneurship, I have been involved with employees more than once and entrusted with important tasks , All kinds of female assistants , All kinds of so-called confidants , It made the interior a mess .”

Some former employees pointed out , The number of employees of Purdue technology has experienced a roller coaster change , stay 2021 The year has expanded. 10 times , but 2022 In, I brake hard .

Some former employees said ,“ How fast did it expand before , Now, how hard the layoffs are ”.

2022 year , Application scenarios are decreasing

In the long run , The commercial robot industry has great prospects .

such as , With the further deepening of population aging , And young people are unwilling to engage in such simple and repetitive work , The cleaning industry has fallen into difficulties in recruiting workers 、 The dilemma of large staff turnover .

According to statistics ,2020 Fourth quarter of 2007 , In the ranking of employment gap , The cleaner is in the first place 2 position . In the face of a large number of labor shortages that need to be solved , Industry for low cost 、 The need for efficient automatic cleaning robots , Become very urgent .

Relevant data display ,2021 year , The scale of China's commercial cleaning market will reach 488.2 One hundred million yuan , Expect to 2025 year , China's commercial cleaning robot market will continue to grow at a high rate to nearly 100 billion yuan , There is a huge market for cleaning robots .

Commercial robots are also typical hard technology industries , It can also be regarded as responding to the direction of national development , But such enterprises also have natural disadvantages , That is to burn money generally , Need to rely on Financing , On the other hand , The development of such enterprises naturally depends on the funds and application scenarios of large platforms .

In the past , Similar to Tencent 、 Ali 、 Jd.com and offline warehousing and logistics enterprises , Because of competition and layout of cutting-edge technology and other reasons , Will invest heavily in commercial robots , Even if the commercial robot enterprises expand for other reasons , Problems arise , Investors can also lend a helping hand .

but 2022 It's a special year , The platform economy suffered a heavy blow , I am slimming down , Especially robot companies in the catering industry , No catering , Who needs robots . The capital market is generally cooled , In this context , The fate of commercial robots can be imagined .

It can only be said , The fate of Purdue technology will not be an isolated case , In the future, more peers will have strategic contraction , Even business failure .

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Lei Di was founded by Lei Jianping, a senior media person , If reproduced, please indicate the source .