The four hundred and seventy-first chapter is about to harvest in 2018
Martial Arts World Company is registered in Hong Kong and its actual office is in Chengdu.
The company is not big, and it is easy to integrate. Zhang Yida leaves all these matters to Zhang Lan to follow up.
He took a Gulfstream G650ER to the UK and met with Ed Newton Ricks, the founder of the music AI startup Jukedeck.
People with Newton in their names are usually pretty much the same, and this Ricks is no exception.
Ricks studied arranging from childhood to college, and later studied music theory at Cambridge University.
In 2012, after attending a computer science lecture held by his girlfriend's alma mater Harvard University, he was inspired to start this music AI company with his good friend in the college choir, Stobbs.
The research direction of this company called Jukedeck is to apply artificial intelligence to music composition.
AI music mainly meets two aspects, one is background music, and the other is music creation.
Jukedeck can quickly and cheaply create unique background music for a large number of videos, games, etc., solving the problems of expensive music copyright fees and time-consuming music editing.
At the same time, they also provide help to non-professionals to realize their ideas of creating music.
Zhang Yida set his sights on this company, but he couldn't stand the endless extortion from the three major labels, so he had to find a way to counter it.
In a villa in the suburbs of London, Zhang Yida met the two founders of Jukedeck.
The two of them were very enthusiastic. As soon as they met Zhang Yida, they started to praise Musical.ly for how popular it was and how much they loved it.
Both of them are in their early thirties, and they feel like young guys in their early twenties.
Zhang Yida was not surprised and exchanged a few words with the two of them.
Then, the two took Zhang Yida to visit their company.
The company is very small, with a total of 18 people including the two founders.
Ricks introduced: "Mr. Zhang, although we don't have many people, we are all elites.
There are 15 people who are engineers in different fields. They have artificial intelligence researchers who specialize in core AI systems;
There are software engineers who are music production experts;
There are also engineers in product, full line, infrastructure, etc...
All members of the team are professionals in music, and at the same time they understand artificial intelligence, machinery, music information retrieval and other technologies."
Zhang Yida understands, they are all composite talents, all-rounders!
"I heard that you received two rounds of venture capital, £625,000 from Cambridge Enterprise and £2 million from Cambridge Innovation Fund?"
Ricks nodded. He was very clear about Zhang Yida's purpose, so he spared no effort to introduce his company.
“Jukedeck is not the kind of company that keeps burning money but cannot come up with practical applications.
We officially launched Jukedeck MAKE, an online music creation application based on artificial intelligence synthesis technology two years ago.
On this platform, by setting the music type, piano, folk, rock, ambient sound, pop, etc.;
Mood: parameters such as joy, melancholy, anger, instruments and rhythm can automatically generate a 1 minute and 30 second MP3 format music in less than 10 minutes.
The application does not limit the number of pieces of music generated, but users must pay a certain fee if they want to download it.
US$0.99 is the fee that users pay to download music once, but the premise is that the service provider must be an individual or a company with less than 10 people, and the user only has the right to use the music;
Companies with 10 or more people need to pay $21.99 to download music once, and they also only have the right to use that piece of music;
If you want to own the copyright of a piece of music, whether you are an individual or a company, you need to pay $199..."
Zhang Yida has figured out their source of income, and individual users are here to show off.
Enterprise users, such as game companies, spend US$21.99 or US$199 to buy a piece of music to soundtrack their games.
This kind of music is still not as good as the music composed by masters, but it is basically enough for gamers to listen to.
For Jukedeck, there is no cost involved, music can be mass-produced.
The Jukedeck system first inputs hundreds of tunes into an artificial neural network, which then analyzes the tunes.
Calculate the probability of one note following another and the combination of chords, and then synthesize a work of similar style. The automatic production program will convert it into audio material.
But at present, Jukedeck's songs cannot capture emotions, which is also the company's next stage of research direction.
In order to inspect the goods, Zhang Yida found his favorite song "Blue Lotus" on his mobile phone, played it to the two of them, and assigned them a task to make a song similar to the style of Blue Lotus.
Ricks understood that this was a test for himself. After listening to Blue Lotus carefully several times, he launched the mobile app and composed a copycat song for Zhang Yida on the spot.
After hearing this, Zhang Yida could only say that it was passable, but it was indeed a little less interesting.
But for him who doesn't have high musical attainments, he is already above the qualifying line.
DouShi and Musical.ly need background music. An immature music AI company alone cannot meet all needs, and it can only be said to be an attempt.
However, AI technology has emerged, and it is necessary for Zhonghe Group to invest more resources in this field.
After chatting with the two founders and confirming that there were no major problems, Zhang Yida arranged for the AI team from China to start technical discussions with the Jukedeck team.
Although it is not necessarily true that this company is a parallel importer, Zhang Yida does not understand the technology, so to be on the safe side, professionals still need to inspect the goods.
After the technical team discussed and confirmed that there was no problem, Zhang Yida arranged for the negotiation team to start quotation negotiations with the two founders.
Ricks and Stobbs asked for a high price, asking for £50 million.
The professional negotiation team was professional after all. They bargained from multiple perspectives such as technical reserves, revenue, market prospects, etc., and lowered the price all the way down to 12 million pounds, equivalent to 16 million US dollars.
After some discussions with the team, Ricks finally agreed.
After acquiring Jukedeck, in addition to acquiring all the intellectual property rights of the company, 18 employees will also join Zhonghe Group's artificial intelligence laboratory in London.
As Zhonghe Group grows, in addition to opening operating branches overseas, it also gradually begins to set up R&D centers.
R&D centers and laboratories have been established in Silicon Valley, Singapore, London and other places in the United States, with the purpose of attracting more talents.
The rationale for technology companies such as Microsoft and Oracle to set up R&D centers in China is similar.
…
Upon learning that Zhang Yi had arrived in Europe, AC Milan's new club president Li Yonghong personally made a phone call.
"Brother Zhang, you have helped me a lot this time. Do you want to come to Milan to watch a football match? I will reserve the best box for you..."
On the phone, Li Yonghong was full of energy and it was obvious that he was in good spirits.
As a creditor, Temasek has been paying attention to Li Yonghong's every move recently.
Including spending 200 million euros during the summer transfer window to buy 11 new players, almost overhauling the entire team;
In the stands, excited fans even held up scarves and wrote "We are so rich" and other details. They wrote a special report and sent it to Zhang Yida by Li Hengbo.
Zhang Yida understood Li Yonghong's plan at a glance. Spend money to buy players to improve their performance. As long as they reach the Champions League and receive high bonuses, the club's finances will be greatly improved and its valuation will also increase.
When the time comes, whether he sells the club or continues to operate it, he will have a way out.
Zhang Yida looked at AC Milan's results and was not optimistic that Li Yonghong would be able to make a comeback. He would probably capsize like in his previous life.
Zhang Yida has informed Li Hengbo that something is wrong. He will take over AC Milan immediately.
Zhang Yida smiled and declined Li Yonghong's invitation, using the pretext that it was already January and he was going back to China to organize the company's annual meeting.
Li Yonghong stopped persuading and thanked Zhang Yida repeatedly for his help on the phone. He also asked Zhang Yida to go to AC Milan to watch football when he was free and reserve the best seat for him.
No one could tell that the gentle and thrifty uncle on the phone turned out to be a big liar.
Zhang Yida also hurriedly returned to China because he received news that Handing Group had a problem with its capital chain and was about to launch a tearful sale.