Hong Kong-made robots start-up: With DJI as the target, Alibaba Cloud will launch a cooperation plan in the Mainland

Special interviews

Written by: Kuang Yueting

2021-03-23 ​​08:00

Last update date: 2021-03-23 ​​08:00

The results of the JUMPSTARTER 2021 competition organized by the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund announced yesterday (Monday). One of the winners is the local robotics startup Rice Robotics.

Li Guokang, founder and CEO of Rice Robotics, said in an interview last Friday (19th) that before the announcement of the game results, the company had discussed the cooperation plan with Alibaba Cloud internally, and will start commercial cooperation in the Mainland later, but the details are inconvenient to disclose.

Click on the picture below to browse the robot delivery process:

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Sold more than 100 robots this year

Rice Robotics was established in early 2019. The company has developed 3 robots, namely Rice, which delivers meals or small documents, Jasmine, which provides disinfection services, and Portal, which provides patrol services.

The company signed an agency agreement with the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank (SoftBank) in December last year to enter the Japanese market; the company also received a capital injection from New World Development (0017) in the middle of this month to jointly develop Hong Kong's first multifunctional robot.

Li Guokang said that the company has been cooperating with New World for a year, and in the future, 60 robots will be manufactured for New World every year. In terms of customization, the number is a lot.

As a Hong Kong start-up company, Rice Robotics has received support from major institutions such as New World and Alibaba. He is very encouraged that he can have funds to develop more products in the future. "From the previous one year (robot) to two a year ."

There are many robotics companies in the market, but Rice Robotics has won the favor of well-known investors.

Li Guokang feels that although there are many cheaper robots on the market, the company's design of robots has added a lot of interesting elements, making the product design fun, and the user interface is also very simplified, which is convenient for front-line staff to use.

However, he confessed that all the company's orders "ran out" after the epidemic. The first order came from Chinachem Group Nina Plaza. At that time, the mall purchased 3 robots. After that, the orders slowly increased, and they are close to selling this year. Over a hundred robots.

"We always cross the river by feeling the stones, and do what we see if there is a problem." In addition, due to the severe epidemic in Japan, it is difficult to achieve face-to-face sales, resulting in sales growth in the Japanese market not as good as that in the Hong Kong market.

Li Guokang revealed that the company's robots will start delivering food at the Food court of the K11 mall as early as the end of April. The biggest challenge for the time being is to cope with the peak hours.

(Photo by Kuang Yueting)

Chip supply is expected to gradually stabilize in the third quarter

Recently, there is a shortage of global chip supply. Li Guokang said that some parts of the company’s robots are similar to those used in electric vehicles. At present, there is a large demand for electric vehicles in the Mainland, which increases the price of incoming parts. The company will prepare more goods and clamp the goods. Time to deal with it.

He revealed that the order is about to wait for 1 month before the goods are available. If the order volume is large, it will take longer to wait. It is estimated that the first to second quarters will still have a period of time until the third quarter. Gradually stabilized.

Now Rice Robotics has only 3 robots. Li Guokang described the company as an early drone manufacturer DJI (DJI). Although there are only a few products now, it will focus on the most core technology, and it will extend a few more later. This product, launches different prices and different types of fusion robots, and attacks the B2C (business to customer) market.

"As the company continues to grow, it will sound that Shenzhen has a R&D team, and Hong Kong will be the place for sales operations!"

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