36Kr learned that “Hard City” has recently completed two rounds of B2 and B3 billion-level financing. In this round of financing, the B2 round was led by Cheng Capital, followed by Hanqiao Capital; the B3 round was led by Oriental Jiafu, with Cheng Capital continuing to invest. The funds raised from the financing will be used by "Hard City" to increase investment in "AI application in industry" and "production capacity collaboration", further expand the leading advantage of BOM (electronic component purchase list) one-stop supply chain solution and improve production capacity collaboration capabilities to achieve rapid scale.

"Hard City" was launched in March 2016. It is a platform based on big data and artificial intelligence technology that provides BOM cost accounting, risk management and control, alternative material recommendation, and component delivery services for small and medium-sized enterprises. It meets the one-stop supply chain needs of small and medium-sized technological hardware enterprises from component procurement, sourcing and delivery to integrated circuit patch production.

Picture from pixabay

Since its establishment, "Hard City" has established an intelligent BOM SaaS system, and used this as an entry point to realize the digital and intelligent transformation of important links in the electronic industry chain from hardware design, component delivery to production and manufacturing. It has built a collaborative intelligent manufacturing platform of "flexible supply chain + flexible production" to meet users' minimum order requirements for one set of hardware samples.

Founder Li Liuqi told 36Kr that currently there are more than 2,000 of the world's top chip original manufacturers and first-level agents cooperating with "Hard City", with access to 30 million+ SKUs, covering 95% of mainstream brands and products.

Regarding this financing, Li Liuqi, founder of Hard City, said that new companies in the electronics industry are mainly divided into three types:

​ 1. Component Mall, an e-commerce company mainly engaged in component circulation such as self-operation and purchasing on behalf of others;

2. Intelligent PCB manufacturing, from rapid PCB prototyping to PCB production and manufacturing, then providing components, extending to SMT;

3. SaaS is all about collaborative intelligent manufacturing. SaaS tools solve industry difficulties, provide component supply chain solutions, and then empower factories to achieve collaborative intelligent manufacturing.

"Hard City" belongs to the third type. General SaaS technology provides data, algorithms, supply chain capabilities, intelligent manufacturing collaboration platform and other infrastructure for the industrial chain, and based on this, it is in-depth and thorough, forming barriers, and then extending to the upstream and downstream of the industry.

Investor perspective

Gu Xuan, an investor in this round who became a capital partner, believes that against the background of the accelerated localization of upstream chips and the rapid iteration of downstream electronic products led by new domestic products, new historic opportunities will arise in the coordination of circulation and manufacturing of electronic components. Become Capital's Optimistic Hard City and Li Liuqi's team use the application of big data and AI technology, combined with the team's years of solid industry knowledge, to transform the multi-trillion electronics industry chain, empower upstream and downstream, and improve the production and circulation efficiency of the industry chain.

Xu Xiao, founding partner of Oriental Jiafu, believes that the development of new technologies and new connection methods will bring about the explosion of smart hardware. Currently, the speed of innovation and post-startup development of new hardware brands has accelerated exponentially. More start-up companies will have more streamlined organizational structures, and their core competitiveness will gradually shift from traditional supply chains to brand and business model innovation. At this time of industrial change, Hard City starts from customers' BOM procurement of electronic components and provides one-stop reverse supply chain solutions, which greatly reduces customers' operating costs and trial and error costs. The company's supply chain service capabilities will be deposited into the "infrastructure" of the industrial chain.

He Han, a partner at Hanbridge Capital, said: In the process of investing in global semiconductor and cloud computing companies for many years, we have seen that the accelerated shift of the global semiconductor industry chain has forced China's manufacturing industry to accelerate the informatization process of the supply chain. Only companies with the ability to extend upstream and downstream of the industry chain can stand out. Investment Director Huang Jingxuan believes that there are not many companies in the market that can build a competitive industrial manufacturing ecosystem. Hard City has a complete supply chain system, a big data intelligent system for precise transaction matching, and a flexible market approach that integrates procurement, information, value-added, and finance to create multiple value points for the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.