华尔街日报 | 硅谷现在需要什么：利润微薄的普通行业

Now Wanted in Silicon Valley: Ho-Hum Businesses With Thin Profit Margins


忘掉虚拟现实头戴设备和脑芯片植入吧。AI自动化行政任务的前景正在吸引风险投资家，他们将目光投向会计、客户服务中心和物业管理等枯燥乏味的行业。


风险投资公司General Catalyst的董事总经理Marc Bhargava表示，该公司计划投入数亿美元，用于投资服务行业。

忘掉虚拟现实(VR)头戴设备和脑芯片植入吧。硅谷正在瞄准那些需要大量文书工作的普通行业。
Forget virtual-reality headsets and brain-chip implants. Silicon Valley is coming for boring businesses that do lots of clerical work. 
   
人工智能(AI)自动化行政任务的前景正在吸引风险投资家，他们将目光投向会计、客户服务中心和物业管理等枯燥乏味的行业。科技创业者已筹集数亿美元资金，用AI工具改造这些企业，以提高它们的盈利能力。
The prospect of artificial intelligence automating administrative tasks is attracting venture capitalists to ho-hum professions such as accounting, customer-service centers and property management. Tech entrepreneurs have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit these businesses with AI tools and drive up their profitability. 
   
该策略还涉及初创公司采用华尔街最青睐的一种做法——并购整合。私募股权投资公司改进了洗车、供暖和空调设备等行业企业合并并利用规模效应降低成本的模式。这些新成立的初创公司筹集的大部分资金同样用于收购企业，然后将这些企业“整合”成一家公司。
The playbook also involves startups adapting one of Wall Street’s favorite practices: the roll-up. Private-equity firms refined the model of merging businesses in sectors such as car washes and heating and air conditioning outfits and using greater scale to cut costs. Much of the capital these new startups raise is similarly going to fund buyouts of businesses, which are “rolled up” into one operation. 
   
“这些服务行业，很多最终在全球范围内都只是勉强实现盈亏平衡，因此它们并没有得到风险投资者的太多关注，”风险投资公司General Catalyst的董事总经理Marc Bhargava表示。“这种情况将会改变。”General Catalyst计划投入数亿美元，用于这类投资。
“These services businesses, many of them ultimately globally just barely break even, so they haven’t got a lot of attention from VC investors,” said Marc Bhargava, a managing director at General Catalyst, a venture firm planning to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into these types of investments. “That’s going to change.” 
   
这一新领域的初创公司也为投资者提供了更多接触AI转型主题的机会，而不仅仅是关注芯片制造商英伟达(Nvidia)等公司。做多AI潜力的其他方式包括购买电力生产商、涡轮机制造商、数据中心设备制造商和其他AI基础设施提供商的股票。
The startups in this new field add to the growing universe of places where investors can get exposure to the theme of AI transformation, beyond companies like chip maker Nvidia. Other ways people have expressed bullishness on AI’s potential include buying shares of power producers, turbine makers, manufacturers of data-center equipment and other providers of AI infrastructure. 
  
在将AI引入普通行业的财力最雄厚的新公司中，有一家是成立于13个月前的初创公司Long Lake Management Holdings。据知情人士透露，自公司成立以来，Long Lake已从投资者那里筹集了6亿美元资金，并收购了十几家公司，这些公司总共雇佣了约1,400名员工。
Among the flushest new players bringing AI to quiet professions is Long Lake Management Holdings, a startup founded 13 months ago. Since then, Long Lake has raised $600 million plus from investors and acquired around a dozen companies that collectively employ about 1,400 workers, people familiar with the company said. 
   
Long Lake最初的收购对象是那些为业主协会管理运营的企业。这些管理公司现在正在采用AI工具来完成为业主协会理事会会议制作演示文稿等任务。Long Lake正计划将业务扩展到其他行业，包括人力资源服务。
Long Lake’s first deals were for businesses that manage the operations of homeowners associations. Those management companies are now adopting AI tools for tasks like generating presentations for HOA board meetings. It is targeting an expansion into other industries, including human-resources services.
   
另一家吸引风险投资的初创公司是Crete Professionals Alliance，该公司已收购了多家地区性会计和专业服务公司。去年成立的Crescendo在其首笔交易中收购了一家拥有3,000多名员工的客户服务公司。英国房地产科技初创公司Dwelly去年达成了一项交易，收购了一家管理1,000多处房产的房屋租赁机构。
Another startup that attracted venture funding is Crete Professionals Alliance, which has acquired multiple regional accounting and professional-services firms. Crescendo, which launched last year, bought out a customer-service company that had over 3,000 workers its first deal. Dwelly, a British property-tech startup, did a deal last year for a home-rental agency that managed over 1,000 properties. 
    
在更传统的初创公司融资市场尚未重返此前巅峰的同时，风险投资家正投资于整合业务。PitchBook的数据显示，去年美国初创公司投资额较2021年下降了41%。2021年，低利率和疫情期间对数字服务的需求推动该市场活动达到创纪录水平。
Venture capitalists are investing in roll-up efforts while the broader market for more traditional startup fundraising hasn’t returned to previous highs. U.S. startup investment volume last year was 41% lower than in 2021, according to PitchBook data. That year, low interest rates and demand for digital services during the pandemic drove record levels of activity. 
   
一个很大的例外是对OpenAI和Anthropic等知名AI公司数以十亿美元计的投资轮。那些初创公司的一些投资者也支持将AI引入不那么光鲜亮丽的行业。库什纳(Josh Kushner)旗下Thrive Capital为Long Lake和Crete提供了资金，Thrive Capital持有OpenAI的很大一部分股份。
A big exception is the multibillion-dollar investment rounds into high-profile AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Some investors in those startups are also backing the efforts to bring AI to less glamorous sectors. Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, which owns a significant chunk of OpenAI, funded Long Lake and Crete.


Thrive Capital首席执行官库什纳正在寻求将AI引入不那么光鲜亮丽的行业。

General Catalyst的Bhargava表示，他的公司近年来已为此战略投入了15亿美元，并希望为公司支持的每个项目至少开出1亿美元的支票。该公司已投资了七家致力于AI赋能型整合的初创公司，包括Long Lake和Crescendo。
Bhargava of General Catalyst said his firm dedicated $1.5 billion to the strategy in recent years and is looking to write checks of at least $100 million for each project it backs. The firm has invested in seven startups pursuing AI-enabled rollups, including Long Lake and Crescendo.
    
这些初创公司背后的一些创业者来自华尔街。Long Lake的联合创始人Alex Taubman曾在Oaktree Capital Management工作了十年。他还曾任职于管理其家族财富的投资公司，这些财富大部分来自其家族创立的奢侈品购物中心运营商The Taubman Company。
Some of the entrepreneurs behind these startups come from Wall Street. Long Lake was co-founded by Alex Taubman, who spent a decade at Oaktree Capital Management. He also worked at the investment firm that managed his family’s wealth, much of which came from the luxury-mall operator they founded, The Taubman Company.
   
但这些初创公司的一些新策略对传统的收购投资者来说可能很陌生。例如，私募股权公司历来利用借来的资金来推动交易达成，同时保持最终控制权。风险投资公司则支持初创公司创始人，这些创始人保留对企业的多数股权，而这些企业迄今为止在避免负债。
But some of the new startup tactics will look foreign to traditional buyout investors. Private-equity firms, for example, historically used borrowed money to fuel their dealmaking while maintaining ultimate control. Venture firms are backing startup founders that retain majority ownership of the businesses, which are so far avoiding debt.