According to Interface News, smartphone manufacturer OPPO has acquired Hangzhou Waveform Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Waveform Intelligence"), and the company's founder, Jiang Yuchen, will join OPPO. In response, OPPO stated that "there is currently no further information available." Insiders at Waveform Intelligence have confirmed the acquisition and indicated that "the products are still operating normally."
Waveform Intelligence was established in 2023 by Jiang Yuchen, who was born in 1998. Jiang graduated from the Chu Kochen College of Zhejiang University and later earned a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich, specializing in natural language generation. In January of this year, the company completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB, led by BlueRun Ventures.
Waveform Intelligence's flagship products are the vertical domain large model "Weaver" for Chinese creation and its driven "WaWa Writing" series. At the end of July this year, the company released the Weaver 2.0 version, which was upgraded to support multi-modal infinite-length content generation and personalized adaptive private language models. However, less than three months after the release of the new version, the company was acquired.
Industry insiders point out that this acquisition reflects the developmental challenges faced by vertical large model companies. During periods of slowing technological innovation, startups have disadvantages in terms of capital, technology, and talent compared to larger companies. Investor Zhu Xiaohu previously stated that the best outcome for the "Six Little Tigers" of large models would be to be acquired by a major company.
It is worth noting that a similar wave of mergers and acquisitions has spread in Silicon Valley, USA. This year, Microsoft has recruited talent from Inflection, and Google has acquired Character.AI, showing the large companies' strong demand for AI talent. Following the acquisition of Waveform Intelligence, its founder Jiang Yuchen joining OPPO also confirms this trend.
