36Kr has learned that the industrial software developer "AirEdge" has completed tens of millions of dollars of Pre-A round of financing, this round of financing by the Oriental Jiafu led investment, Westlake Venture Capital and the old shareholders of the Huaji Capital follow up, Canglan Capital as the exclusive financial adviser for this round of financing. This round of financing funds will be used for product development and team building.

AirEdge, a long-term concern of 36 Krypton, began operations in 2022, providing R&D management support software for advanced manufacturing fields such as aerospace and medical devices, including process modeling engines and pilot tools, as well as product lifecycle management (PLM, Product Lifecycle Management) and quality management (QMS, Quality The company provides R&D management support software, including process modeling engines and navigation tools, as well as PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and QMS (Quality Management System) tool sets.

R&D in the advanced manufacturing field is characterized by long and complex processes, vertical supply chains, and high demand for data and process management, which requires the realization of traceability and backtracking of the entire R&D process. Taking aircraft R&D as an example, there are many links from conceptualization to obtaining airworthiness qualification, and each link has corresponding standards, which may be redone if not strictly implemented, resulting in a waste of resources.

However, compared with Product Data Management (PDM), which connects R&D and manufacturing, the supply of PLM, QMS and other R&D tools is still insufficient, and the market penetration rate needs to be improved. At present, the relevant domestic market share is mainly occupied by international vendors such as Siemens, Dassault, PTC, etc. Domestic products are mostly focused on general data management in low to medium complexity or scale replication scenarios.

PDM and PLM difference, the source of the enterprise in response to the above situation, AirEdge plans to cut into the market from the aerospace as a representative of the segment, and gradually expand to the automotive transportation, industrial equipment and other PLM, QMS main application areas. Wisdom research work soft team in the advanced manufacturing field for many years, with aerospace, automotive and industrial equipment and other industry experience. The founder, Wu Qiong, has participated in the R&D and management of several key aircraft models, and has led the whole process and life cycle development of core avionics systems and IMA platform products for the C919 domestic aircraft. "[R&D management tools] only have basic functionality, but cannot provide more industry knowledge or match best practices to the R&D process." Based on past experience in complex product development, Wu Qiong believes that there is still great room for improvement in existing R&D management tools. In response,AirEdge integrated the team's experience to provide a process modeling engine and navigation tool software, as well as PLM and QMS open R&D management toolset "AirEdge". At the same time, the related products can be connected to the customer's existing digital ecosystem to realize the switching of product formats with domestic and foreign vendors. Specifically, the process modeling engine and navigation tools can combine industry know-how, practices, and relevant regulatory standards to sort out the effectiveness of different process operations, determine whether each operation is executed properly, and then link numerous operations to discover the optimal path for the R&D process. "We want to provide tools for development, not tools for filing after the fact." Wu Qiong said. On this basis, AirEdge is able to navigate customers' R&D operations, prompting them to complete mandatory actions and target tasks, thereby shortening R&D cycles, reducing costs, responding quickly to market demand, and ultimately increasing profits. In addition, during the specific R&D process, AirEdge can dynamically plan the R&D process according to the actual operation of product R&D, optimize resource allocation, and ensure the optimal solution. In terms of market expansion, Wisdom Research Industrial Soft has now deployed head customers in the aviation field, and plans to enter the automotive industry, medical and other scenarios. Since the official start of commercialization in 2023, AirEdge product sales have been nearly ten million yuan.

The investor's point of view:

Zheng Ge, Executive General Manager of Oriental Capital, said: Oriental Capital has long been concerned about the development of domestic industrial software and investment opportunities. AirEdge focuses on advanced manufacturing industry to provide research and development design tool set and service platform, for enterprises to provide domestic alternative program. Industrial software itself is the product of industrial technology software, is the best industrial knowledge "container", the company PLM & QMS products in the optimization of R&D production synergy at the same time, very good industry know-how encapsulated into the software for advanced manufacturing continued to improve efficiency and reduce costs. AirEdge team has scarce and comprehensive industry experience, we are very much looking forward to the company can provide better software products for the development of China's advanced manufacturing. Shen Lifen, Chairman of Westlake Venture Capital, said: With its in-depth understanding of the industry and good R & D capabilities, AirEdge provides a single product or one-stop R & D and design toolset with PLM & QMS products for the compliance development of advanced manufacturing industries such as aerospace. WESTLAKE Venture Capital will continue to assist industrial software companies like AirEdge in terms of funding, policy, and industry in a comprehensive manner for their sustainable development. We look forward to AirEdge's leading position in the localized industrial software market.