After the product manager of last year’s popular product ‘Miaoya’, Zhang Yueguang, left to start a business, he has completed four rounds of financing with a total amount close to 300 million RMB.
After the large-scale model and AIGC became popular in 2023, a large number of modeling platform companies emerged in the domestic market. However, innovative application-oriented teams are few in the “Battle of Hundred Large-Scale Models.” It is also against this backdrop that Alibaba‘s team developed the “Miaoya” photo-realistic style AIGC product, which exploded in popularity due to its good rendering effects and high usability advantages. Zhang Yueguang, the product manager of “Miaoya” camera products, is also known as one of the “first batch of AIGC product managers”.
At the end of 2023, Zhang Yueguang left Alibaba and founded a new company called ‘Beijing Muyan Zhiyu Technology Co., Ltd.’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘Muyan Intelligence‘). It is reported that in less than half a year, Muyan Intelligence has completed four rounds of financing, with the following details:
The first round of financing amounted to 30 million RMB, with Gaorong Capital being the main investor;
The second round of financing amounted to 60 million RMB, with Monolith being the main investor;
The third round of financing amounted to 75 million RMB, with Future Capital Discovery Fund being the main investor;
The fourth round of financing amounted to 120 million RMB.
It is worth noting that Muyan Intelligence has received four rounds of financing totaling nearly 300 million RMB without releasing any new products or validating its business model in the current challenging capital market environment.
In the new wave of AI, entrepreneurs in the Chinese market are mainly divided into three categories: one is scholar entrepreneurship, such as Zhipu AI and Infinigence; another is former senior employees from big companies and experienced industrial professionals, such as Baichuan Intelligence and AIsphere; the third category is young talents, like Moonshot AI. Zhang Yueguang’s label overlaps with the latter two categories and has a younger product aesthetic.
SEE ALSO: AIsphere Received Funding of Over 100 Million Chinese Yuan
In mid-July 2023, Alibaba‘s internal entrepreneurial project Miaoya Camera quietly launched and became a hit within a few weeks. It can be considered one of the earliest truly groundbreaking products in China’s AIGC field.
By uploading more than 20 photos containing faces, paying 9.9 yuan, and selecting preferred templates and styles, users can create their own “digital avatar” to obtain portrait works. With a series of advantages such as realistic image generation quality, Miaoya Camera dominated the application product rankings for a period of time.
Before being in charge of the Miaoya camera at Alibaba, Zhang Yueguang, who was originally a product manager, brought out many other products with some influence.
In 2012, after graduating from Tsinghua University with a degree in Computer Science and Technology, Zhang Yueguang joined Alibaba. During this time, he participated in the planning of Alipay’s Spring Festival “Collect Five Blessings” and “Shake Shake” projects.
In 2016, he joined Beijing Bit Starlight Technology and served as the product manager of Time Album. The standout product he was responsible for during that time was the first New Year ‘Red Envelope Rain’ event under Toutiao in 2018.
In 2018, Zhang Yueguang left ByteDance and founded Beijing Bit Starlight Technology Co., Ltd., serving as CEO. He successively received investments totaling hundreds of millions of US dollars from Alibaba, 01VC, and K2VC. His subsidiary second-dimensional dress-up social product ‘Yuan Yin’ has nearly 50,000 DAU and revenue exceeding one million.
In July 2020, Zhang Yueguang returned to Alibaba as a senior product expert with a job level of P9. He has been in charge of teams and products for Youku short videos, live streaming, and other businesses. In July 2023, Miaoya Camera quickly gained popularity as the first AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) product to go viral at the consumer level.
At the end of 2023, not long after leaving his position at Alibaba, Zhang Yueguang began preparing for entrepreneurship and looking for suitable co-founders and COOs.
There are no consensus projects in the current investment market, but Zhang Yueguang’s startup company may be the only project that most investors agree on. With a background from Tsinghua University and being a serial entrepreneur who has achieved good results at big companies like Alibaba and ByteDance, Zhang Yueguang possesses typical characteristics that investment institutions favor.
“Zhang Yueguang’s understanding of AIGC is very clear.” This was the evaluation given by an investor who has invested in Muyan Intelligence. In his opinion, the key to AIGC lies in G (Generative), which refers to the changes in productivity tools, and Meoya’s core product is also G. Perhaps this is also why Zhang Yueguang can gain market support.
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