00:00I understand that your company is already profitable in an industry that's really difficult
00:05and challenging. Tell us a little bit about when you turn the corner and whether your
00:09cash flow positive this year. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Thank you for having me today.
00:17Neolix is a company focused on the autonomous delivery. We are the totally L4 driverless
00:25company, very focused on middle mile or last mile delivery. We call it intra-city logistics.
00:33And most importantly, you are right, the vehicles actually pays for itself. When we commercialize
00:41the vehicles on the road, we have business models for the clients to save money and increase
00:49the efficiency for themselves. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your profitability, though.
00:57Yeah. We are very self-sustaining right now. We have different business models for the clients.
01:04We have the vehicles. Actually, some shapers buy or lease the vehicles to use for themselves.
01:12And also, we have a very promising business model called RoboVan as a service. The shippers
01:20can use the vehicle per kilometer, very similar to Uber or Didi. The barrier to use is very high
01:29and the payback to us is very promising as well.
01:35When it comes to growing your company from here, what are your ambitions at the moment? And where do
01:40you see the biggest bottlenecks? Are we talking about regulation, customer adoption, the technology
01:45itself? Yes. The first barrier or challenge right now is definitely the regulation. But actually,
01:54compared with a couple of years ago, the regulators are generally right now asking how we can really
02:01open this. A couple of years ago, probably they are asking whether we should open this. So that's a
02:09huge change. The second one is actually on the integration of the operation. We are very different
02:17from RoboTaxi. We are generally a part of the workflow of the shapers. So we need to integrate this
02:24vehicle, this technology into the very boring workflow of the shapers. So that's another
02:33challenge we're facing every day. But that's also the beauty of the business model. We help the shapers,
02:39we deliver the outcome. I think that's going to be the future for all the AI company as well.
02:47In your latest funding rounds, you got a lot of capital from Middle Eastern investors, also the Hong Kong
02:53capital. Does that sort of center your base for expansion in the future as well?
02:59Yes. Middle East is definitely one of the important markets we're expanding right now.
03:06We have a sizable fleet already there in UAE starting from Abu Dhabi. And also, we have a couple of
03:16other markets in Middle East to open very soon as well. And also, apart from Middle East, we have many
03:26countries, especially in the developed countries, are to be open as well because the labor shortage,
03:34the aging problem, and also the increasing wages are actually a common universal pinpoints for older
03:42economies. That's why we are providing a supply to the economy for the logistic companies, for the
03:52shapers, and also many business owners as well. So it's a very universal demand from different shapers,
03:59and we are going where actually the demand is.
04:05It's interesting that Neolix focused on the logistics part of this business, right,
04:10of the technology. We have seen other companies, for example, really focus on robo-taxis,
04:14which has been really difficult to monetize. Is that the right way for a commercialization path, you think?
04:23Yes, I believe so. I think probably, in general, the physical AI will start from the boring industry.
04:36The logistics is an area actually many countries and many shapers in different countries are facing every
04:45day. It's a very high frequency, very boring job, especially, let's have an example for the night time.
04:56That's actually the best time. The shippers or the drivers need to serve the consumers,
05:02especially for the middle mile. Imagine we are shipping groceries from a warehouse to a market,
05:10from a warehouse to a retail store. That's generally the market, the use case that we are facing,
05:18and it's actually the best time to ship everything during the night time. It's very different from robo-taxi,
05:24but that's the actual need of the older consumers to be served, for example, in the morning when
05:33the retail store opens. So that's the general use case for the industry to happen. Automatic driving is a
05:41very fit technology for them to use. And for example, the traffic is so good during night time,
05:49and the technology is ready and also the society don't even feel it to use it.
05:58And so it's already welcomed by many different regulators in different countries,
06:03countries, and that's some little difference between what we call robo-van and robo-taxi as well.
