Unicorn companies in the low-altitude economy sector continue to secure financing.

Recently, Shanghai Volant Aerotech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Volant Aerotech), a manufacturer of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL), announced the completion of a round of A++++ financing amounting to hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of financing was led by the Beijing Robotics Industry Fund, with Jing Guorui Fund, the equity investment platform of Shougang Fund, Shoucheng Capital, and Yan Chuang Group following suit.

Volant Aerotech's founder and CEO, Dong Ming, revealed that the company has completed five rounds of financing transactions at the billion-yuan level in just over half a year. This also makes Volant Aerotech the eVTOL enterprise with the most financing rounds obtained in China this year.

So far, Volant Aerotech has completed a cumulative financing of $100 million in the A1 round and has simultaneously initiated the next round of financing.

How much attention has Volant Aerotech received from capital? According to an article in the investment industry in April this year, "Since the beginning of this year, hundreds of investment institutions and secondary brokers have visited for inspection and research. Since April, Volant has received more than 200 visits per week... In just the past two months, Volant has intensively received investment attraction teams or state-owned background funds from nearly a hundred cities." It is not surprising that the company has completed five rounds of billion-yuan level financing transactions in half a year.Volante Aviation was founded in June 2021 by Dong Ming, who has over 20 years of experience in the aviation industry. He has held positions at AVIC, General Electric, Rockwell Collins in the United States, and Honeywell Aerospace. In his early years at Rockwell Collins, Dong Ming fully participated in the aircraft integration and engineering test flight of the ARJ21 (COMAC regional aircraft) with a complete set of avionics and automatic flight systems. He then led the development of the core avionics system for the C919 (COMAC mainline technology).

Since its establishment, Volante Aviation has received multiple rounds of financing, with investors including Shunwei Capital, CDH Investments, and Legend Capital, among others.

Volante Aviation follows the large-sized eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) route, with its first product being the VE25. It features a compound wing structure, a cruising speed of 235 km/h, a takeoff weight of 2.5 tons, and can carry one pilot and five passengers. It is currently the largest in takeoff weight and cabin space among manned eVTOLs worldwide. In 2023, the Civil Aviation Administration of East China issued a notice of acceptance for the "VE25-100 type certificate first application project" from Volante Aviation, which is also the first passenger-carrying eVTOL project accepted by the Civil Aviation Administration of East China.

Dong Ming is confident in the Chinese manned eVTOL market. He believes that: First, the market is vast, and eVTOLs will enter people's daily lives on a large scale, becoming a necessity; second, the market development is gradual, but the pace of development and the initial time of large-scale entry into people's daily lives are expected to be faster and earlier than the market anticipates... The year 2026 may usher in the first year of passenger-carrying air taxis.

According to information disclosed on the official website of Volante Aviation, by the end of 2023, they have signed strategic cooperation and intent orders with seven well-known enterprises, including China Southern General Aviation, Huaxia Fudi Technology, Asia Jet Aviation Group, and Ruor Aviation Industry, totaling more than 700 aircraft and an intent order amount of 15 billion yuan.The "low-altitude economy" began to show signs of an explosion last year and was written into the government work report for the first time during this year's national two sessions. The Beijing Association for the Integration of Military and Civilian Innovation mentioned that, "Although the scope of the low-altitude economy is incredibly broad, what has truly caused a sensation this year is the narrow sense of the low-altitude economy. It is a disruptive new industry that uses eVTOL or unmanned aerial vehicles as carriers to achieve advanced air mobility (AAM) in low-altitude operations."

According to data from the Shanghai Securities News, as of now, there have been at least 11 financing cases in the low-altitude economy track with a scale of over 100 million yuan this year, surpassing the total for the whole of last year.

In addition to Volant Aviation, Fengfei Aviation announced in early August that it has received hundreds of millions of dollars in exclusive investment from CATL, and Fengfei Aviation will work together with CATL to develop eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft) aviation batteries. Around the same time, Xiaopeng Huitian announced that it has obtained a B1 round of financing of 150 million US dollars (equivalent to about 1.071 billion yuan) and has also started the B2 round of financing.

Vertical investment institutions around the low-altitude economy have also been established one after another. Many places, including Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangxi, Guiyang, Beijing, and Chongqing, are planning and establishing industrial funds to guide more capital into key areas of the low-altitude economy. For example, in June of this year, Guangzhou Industrial Investment Capital, a subsidiary of Guangzhou Industrial Investment, and Guangzhou Development Zone Transportation Investment Group jointly initiated the establishment of a low-altitude industry venture capital fund with a total scale of 10 billion yuan. In early July of this year, the Chengdu Low-Altitude Economy Industry Fund completed the signing, with the fund's target total scale reaching 3 billion yuan.

The explosion of the low-altitude economy is due to its early stage of commercialization, relatively low valuation, but with a broad future prospect, investors and the industrial side all hope to bet in advance.CITIC Securities Research believes that the current low-altitude economy can be compared to the development stage of new energy vehicles in 2012. After more than a decade of layout and development in the electric vehicle industry, China has unexpectedly established a foundation for the large-scale development of the low-altitude economy. "The spillover of capabilities from the (new energy vehicle) related industries can accelerate the electrification process of the general aviation industry. Coupled with the development of China's 5G, digital twin, artificial intelligence, big data, and other information and communication technologies, air traffic management-related infrastructure is expected to leverage rapid development... Based on electrification technology for aircraft research and development, it can reuse the advantages of the new energy vehicle industry chain's three electrics (battery, motor, and electronic control), and based on China's certain drone whole machine, large aircraft manufacturing, flight control, avionics, and other industrial foundations, it is expected to achieve a leapfrog development."