Recession Run: CCV says autonomous tech, AI, robotics startups are the future

The funding winter is here. News of layoffs and troubles in startups have been cropping up. In this Q&A series, we talk to Southeast Asia’s investors to suss out what opportunities they see, what strategies they’re implementing, and what areas of investment they’re looking at in the next few months.

Which technology will be the biggest opportunity and define the next decade?

For Zhou Wei, founding partner of China-based early-stage VC firm CCV, the next 10 years will be defined by tech that creates smart devices, such as smart cars, smart agricultural vehicles, smart warehouses, smart factories, and smart hospitals, among other things.

Zhou Wei, founding partner of CCV / Photo credit: CCV

“We believe three technologies will be key for building smart tech: autonomous technology, AI, and robotics,” Wei tells Tech in Asia. The former managing partner of KPCB China says the startups that can combine these three technologies together to create a product will be the ones to see growth in the next decade. He says that it is akin to how mobile phone platforms such as Android and iOS enabled the growth in technological advancements today.

This is why CCV has invested in a portfolio of startups that deal in autonomous tech, AI, and robotics in China. However, it has now turned its focus to investing in companies across the globe, especially in regions such as Southeast Asia, the US, and Africa.

It’s also planning to continue enabling Chinese entrepreneurs in their global expansion plans and investing in Southeast Asian entrepreneurs that want to leverage the resources and knowledge from the Chinese market to power their growth.

Here are more insights from Wei on CCV’s plans, the impact of the recession on the startup ecosystem, and his advice to founders during the market downturn.

Are there any particular tech startup sectors that will be least affected by the current economic headwinds? Why?

Wei: With the current global environment, no matter the economy or the investment space, everything will be impacted. The key issue now is people still don’t have consensus on what will be the next huge opportunity. For example, in the past many years, the key growth came from mobile platforms – iOS and Android. They provided 10 years of growth. So what’s the next platform of growth? People don’t know.

CCV is developing to position ourselves as a global firm, including in markets such as Southeast Asia and the US. Chinese entrepreneurs have been trying to expand in the global markets and to get their ability to other regions to build startups. This is one trend we will continue to focus on in our fund.

The second trend is we believe in “smart” things. In the next 10 years, everything will be smart. We believe three technologies will be key for building smart tech: autonomous technology, AI, and robotics. These three things together will generate a lot of smart devices, like smart cars, smart agriculture vehicles, smart warehouses, smart hospitals, smart restaurants, and smart factories, among others. All this when connected together will be the future mobile phone platform equivalent.

That’s why we have dedicated a lot of resources to invest in any team – not only those who are good at AI, autonomous driving, or robotics but also somebody who can consolidate a combined suite together to define what’s the next generation in smart things. The combination of these technologies provide for a totally different kind of behavior.