Qiming, Matrix back Chinese AI start-up Frontis

AIGC has become a hot investment theme since OpenAI launched chatbot ChatGPT. As recently as last week, Shanghai-based Emotibot raised a Series D extension of undisclosed size from GP Capital, GP Capital, KYMCO Capital, Jiangsu Cultural Investment, and Junci Investment.

Beijing-based Frontis was founded in 2021 by Bowen Zhou, the former head of JD.com's AI research institute. Zhou researched AI in the US for nearly 20 years and previously served as director of the Institute of Fundamental Research in Artificial Intelligence at IBM.

Frontis use generative AI capabilities to directly generate market, consumer, and trend insights, as well as product ideas based on these inputs. This is said to greatly accelerate product-to-market timelines and increase the probability of creating “explosive” models.

The idea is to use AIGC across the entire product development process, from demand insight to product innovation, in turn realising a new level of customer-centric manufacturing. To date, the technology has been used in home appliances and consumer goods, serving customers such as JD.com and dairy brand Mengniu.

“I believe China's ChatGPT needs to explore a new path, which is the vertical integration from its basic large model to the application and end users. This is a path to realise both the technical and commercial values of generative AI,” Zhou said in a statement.

Winsoul Capital serves as financial advisor for the round.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• China
• Qiming Venture Partners
• Matrix Partners
• artificial intelligence