Early-stage technological innovation companies will encounter cash flow problems. Financing can allow companies to focus more on product finalization and technology upgrading, thereby successfully passing through the first bottleneck period of entrepreneurship.
Not long ago, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced the launch of Mineral, an agricultural technology company dedicated to significantly improving the quality and scale of agricultural data sets. According to the company's official website, Mineral has currently surveyed and analyzed 10% of the world's farmland, and by 2050 the number of data points will be more than 20 times that of 2014.
Although this is not Google's first foray into agriculture, the global technology giant's move has aroused widespread concern in the industry.
Domestically, some agricultural technology companies have recently received financing. For example, XAG, a well-known drone R&D and manufacturing company, has received a new round of financing, and Shiji Biotechnology, which is engaged in pig breeding, has received a strategic investment of up to 400 million yuan...
It can be seen that financing events in the field of agricultural science and technology are springing up like mushrooms after a rain, and capital is "embracing" agricultural science and technology innovation. The 2022 Central Economic Work Conference proposed to promote a virtuous cycle of "technology-industry-finance". The Central Financial Work Conference held from October 30 to 31 this year proposed to optimize the capital supply structure, use more financial resources to promote technological innovation, advanced manufacturing, green development and small, medium and micro enterprises, and vigorously support the implementation of innovation-driven development strategies, Regional coordinated development strategies to ensure national food and energy security, etc. Taking advantage of this policy trend, can finance inject vitality into agricultural science and technology? Can agricultural science and technology usher in an investment boom and become a new frontier?
The lucky bet
Browsing the WeChat official account of Hangzhou Ruifeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ruifeng Biology") only requires one screen. This company, established in 2009, is mainly engaged in the research and development and promotion of agricultural biotechnology. From 2021 to now, it has only published 4 articles, 2 of which are recruiting.
The latest recruitment is in February 2022. The company profile is "my country's leader in agricultural biotechnology" and plans to recruit 22 people. Going forward is April 2021, recruiting talents in molecular biology, plant genetic transformation, etc. This is also the first article published on the Ruifeng Biology official account. Both recruitments stated that the company provides "competitive salaries and sustainable career development opportunities."
Ruifeng Biological's recruitment brochure and salary package have not always been so "beautiful". When the company was first established, paying wages was the top priority that worried founder Shen Zhicheng. Due to lack of funds, the company has a small team and few employees, so it is difficult to raise wages. "Without funds, the company cannot recruit new people. If the company does not have a certain scale, there is a high probability that biological breeding will not achieve results." Shen Zhicheng said. This, in turn, led the company to enter the next cycle of death: low wages and benefits—unable to recruit people—little scientific research results and slow progress. As for the implementation of research and development results, it is even more out of reach.
"To be honest, the key to starting a business is not having enough money. It's hard to live without money. It's really sad!" Shen Zhicheng doesn't shy away from talking about money. It is precisely because of the lack of money that he and Ruifeng Biotech are in trouble. He believes that the more important point is that with funds, more energy can be spent on problems that need to be solved, such as how to develop technology and how to make products, "rather than on how to feed everyone and how to ensure normal life... …”
Make bricks without straw. Shen Zhicheng has a lot of feelings and ideals, but without financial support, everything is empty talk.
The turning point occurred around 2016. Yuan Longping Agricultural High-tech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Longping Hi-Tech") and Beijing Oriental Agricultural Consulting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Aiger Agriculture") have successively made tens of millions of investments in Ruifeng Bio. After receiving investment, the first thing Ruifeng Biotech did was to improve the salaries of its employees, and then introduced a large number of talents.
"If scientific and technological enterprises want to enter the market, they must reach a certain scale. It is difficult for a small 'Grass Team' to achieve this." The changes brought by the increase in the number of scientific researchers to Ruifeng Biotech are obvious, Shen Zhicheng said, The company originally only studied corn breeding. With the "glue" of talents, the company's total number of projects and the number of ongoing research projects have increased significantly, and soybeans and rice have been included in the research subjects. Corn breeding has expanded from only two research directions to four areas including insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, yield improvement, drought resistance, and lodging resistance. Shen Zhicheng said: "This also means that the probability of success is greater."
At the beginning of 2022, SDIC Chuangyi Industrial Fund Management Co., Ltd.’s investment of hundreds of millions of yuan injected new impetus into the development of Ruifeng Biological. Today, the number of employees at Ruifeng Biotech has reached about 100, and it has established an industry-university-research platform and an innovative talent team for functional gene mining, transformant creation and screening, domestic and international safety evaluation, and backcross breeding of genetically modified varieties. At present, the genetically modified corns "Ruifeng 125", "Zhejiang University Ruifeng 8" and "nCX-1" developed by Ruifeng Biotechnology have obtained agricultural genetically modified organism safety certificates. Genetically modified trait products have cooperated with hundreds of seed industry companies at home and abroad. The company's original broad-spectrum herbicide-resistant genes with international intellectual property rights have reached the world's leading level. After successfully obtaining financing, Shen Zhicheng felt that Ruifeng Biology had "really embarked on the path of industry, academia and research."
At the same time, at the 2022 National Agricultural High-tech Achievements Trading Event, the national agricultural science and technology achievements transformation trading platform "Golden Wing Trading Service Cloud Platform" was launched, striving to open up the entire chain of matching, evaluation, trading, and incubation, and realize online and offline 365 days never ends; the National Agricultural Science and Technology Venture Capital Fund is under intense preparation to guide social capital to participate in agricultural science and technology venture capital...More and more forces are coming from all directions to join forces to create "technological innovation, industrial upgrading, financial "Empowerment" trinity development pattern.
When a reporter asked whether agricultural science and technology is expected to receive investment in the future, Huang Dejun, as a senior agricultural investor, firmly replied: "Definitely!" He said that agriculture is a big industry, and our country has a vast market, but at present, our country's agriculture It is still big but not strong. Only industrialization relying on modern scientific and technological achievements can completely change the face of agriculture. "Agriculture has great potential, and I am willing to continue working in this field."
As for, can this wind really blow to the agricultural technology track, and can agricultural technology take off? let us wait and see.
