Survived! After massive layoffs, Shenzhen companies received hundreds of millions of yuan in financing

In recent years, the service robot market has continued to be hot, with shipments increasing significantly. As a result, it has attracted widespread attention from capital, and industry financing has also increased significantly .

Purdue Technology has received hundreds of millions of yuan in financing, with the total amount of financing exceeding 1 billion yuan!

Recently, Shenzhen Pudu Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pudu Technology") announced the completion of a C4 round of financing of several hundred million yuan.

It is understood that the investor in this round of financing is Yuedu Capital. Purdue Technology's future funds will focus on building new production bases, expanding production capacity, and developing commercial cleaning scene products.

It is worth mentioning that this is the second round of financing for Purdue Technology this year. The first was the C3 round of financing of 100 million yuan announced in February this year , and the investor was PwC Capital .

To date, Purdue Technology has received several rounds of financing .

As early as June 2016, Purdue Technology began to enter the capital market and completed its angel round of financing. The investor was Changying Precision, and the amount of financing was not disclosed to the public.

On June 8, 2018, Purdue Technology received RMB 50 million in Series A financing from Qi Chuang Capital and Rongquan Capital.

On July 1, 2020, Pudu Technology received over 100 million RMB in Series B financing from Meituan Strategic Investment Department and Kuxun Travel.

On August 19, 2020, Purdue Technology received nearly 100 million RMB in Series B+ financing from investors including Sequoia China, Meituan Strategic Investment Department, Everwin Precision, Qi Chuang Capital and Cheng Bohan Venture Capital .

On May 18, 2021, Purdue Technology received RMB 500 million in Series C financing from investors including Tencent Investment, Meituan Strategic Investment Department, Sequoia China, Shenzhen Investment Holdings and the Greater Bay Area Common Home Development Fund .

On September 23, 2021, Pudu Technology received nearly 500 million yuan in C+ round financing from investors including Meituan Strategic Investment Department, Shenzhen Investment Holdings, Sequoia China, and the Greater Bay Area Common Home Development Fund .

Including the two rounds of financing this year, the total amount of financing obtained by Purdue Technology exceeds 1 billion yuan . From the perspective of investors, strategic investors such as Tencent, Sequoia China, Meituan, Shenzhen Investment Holdings, and Greater Bay Area Fund continue to increase their investment.

According to public information, Pudu Technology was founded in 2016. Its main business is the research and development, production and sales of intelligent delivery robots for indoor scenes . Its products are aimed at the global market and are widely used in restaurants, cafes, hospitals, hotels, office buildings and other scenes . They have been sold to more than 60 countries and regions around the world, covering more than 600 cities around the world . At present, Pudu Technology has R&D bases in six major regions: North America, Europe, East Asia, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America .

Purdue Technology has focused on overseas markets since its inception. It is understood that Purdue Technology 's overseas sales account for more than 80% .

As of December 2022, Purdue Technology's cumulative shipments in the global market have exceeded 56,000 units, and it is still maintaining a rapid growth trend .

Purdue Technology once announced that the company 's operating cash income in 2022 increased by nearly 40% year-on-year , and annual shipments exceeded 20,000 units.

In February of this year, Purdue Technology announced that it had won a single order of 3,000 units from Japan 's Skylark Group , setting a new record in the industry. Purdue Technology's most popular high-end delivery product "Bella" in the global market has a market share of more than 80% in the overseas catering market .

Pudu Technology 's core technologies are low-speed autonomous driving, robot motor drive and motion control , and it has more than 600 core patents . Its product line has expanded to food delivery robots, smart cleaning robots , disinfection robots, delivery and reception robots, and many other fields.

( Image source: Purdue Technology official website )

According to information on Purdue Technology 's official website, its current flagship products include the unimpeded delivery robot Qiao Lesong during peak hours, the delivery and welcoming robot Hulu, the building delivery robot Lightning Box, the call notification delivery robot Haola, the high-end food delivery robot Bella, the smart food delivery robot Huanle Song and the commercial cleaning robot CC1.

In addition, Purdue Technology has developed a new intelligent food delivery robot, Happy Delivery 2, which applies vSLAM (visual localization and mapping) to make positioning more accurate and more suitable for usage scenarios.

CEO shouts to survive, Purdue University’s technology staff is drastically reduced!

Although Purdue Technologies has successfully become one of the leaders in the service robot industry, it is also facing many crises in 2022.

On July 4, 2022, the CEO of Purdue Technology suddenly released an open letter to the public, shocking the industry.

CEO Zhang Tao publicly stated that in order for the company to survive, he had to make a difficult decision to lay off employees and downsize its business.

In fact, as early as January 2022, news of Purdue Technology 's layoffs spread online, with plans to lay off 1,000 employees, and all departments would be affected.

Then in April 2022, Purdue Technology announced layoffs again. Some employees who joined the company in February were laid off in March. Some employees of the company have already received N+ 1 compensation .

In July, Purdue University finally announced layoffs and business downsizing.

A former employee of Purdue University said that the company's large-scale layoffs have affected the entire country, with more than 20 cities affected. More than 800 people have been laid off, and it is estimated that the total number of layoffs will exceed 1,000, accounting for one-third of the company's total number of employees.

Some netizens posted on an online platform that Purdue Technology expanded the company's staff to 3,000 at the end of 2021, directly laid off 1,000 employees in February 2022, and then laid off about 700 employees in June. In this major layoff in July, the company expects to retain only 500 people.

Despite the layoffs, Purdue Technology has successfully turned the corner after reducing its staff and business scale. After the market turned better, it regained the favor of the capital market.

Overseas service robot market demand is experiencing rapid growth

In recent years, with the widespread application of robots in service, office, travel, learning and other scenarios, the service robot track has ushered in a period of rapid development .

Especially in terms of commercial services, the overseas market has a huge demand for service robots.

At the beginning of the epidemic, the market demand for service robots saw a massive growth. Because of the "contactless service" widely advocated during the epidemic , more and more service robots appeared in various scenarios such as catering delivery, hotel guidance, and scenic spot introduction , changing people's normal lifestyles.

According to IFR statistics , the market space for professional service robots may reach US$27.7 billion in 2023, with an average annual compound growth rate of 26%.

As a service robot closer to the consumer end, it has broad development prospects . For domestic robot companies, they can actively enter the international market and participate in international competition. Because domestic robots generally have the advantage of high cost performance, and these companies have trained themselves to cope with various demands in the domestic market. At the moment when the market is improving, the opportunity for domestic robot companies has come.

Financing

Purdue Technology