36Kr Exclusive | COMAC Team's eVTOL Startup Raises Hundreds of Millions in Funding, Enters Key Airworthiness Phase
Yiweit Aviation (亿维特航空) completed a hundreds-of-millions RMB A+ round financing led by Shangcheng Capital and Puhua Capital, with Deep Blue Capital as exclusive financial advisor The COMAC-origin team has secured 890+意向 orders across ET9 passenger, ET9 cargo, and ET3 hybrid variants, with partnerships spanning 19 strategic allies Yiweit is the first domestic 2-ton eVTOL company to complete verification flights using a self-developed 800V high-voltage electric propulsion system (EPS), having iter
Analysis
TL;DR
- Yiweit Aviation (亿维特航空) completed a hundreds-of-millions RMB A+ round financing led by Shangcheng Capital and Puhua Capital, with Deep Blue Capital as exclusive financial advisor
- The COMAC-origin team has secured 890+意向 orders across ET9 passenger, ET9 cargo, and ET3 hybrid variants, with partnerships spanning 19 strategic allies
- Yiweit is the first domestic 2-ton eVTOL company to complete verification flights using a self-developed 800V high-voltage electric propulsion system (EPS), having iterated from L50C to L50D
- The company has completed the critical transition flight phase and is now in airworthiness certification compliance verification, targeting certification completion by next year
- Yiweit adopts a "technology downscaling, scenario upsizing" commercialization strategy, entering first with inspection, cargo, and emergency scenarios before targeting urban air mobility
Why It Matters
Yiweit's progress represents a significant milestone in China's eVTOL certification race, as only a handful of domestic companies have completed the critical transition flight phase. Their self-developed propulsion system strategy addresses a key industry bottleneck—reliance on limited European and American motor suppliers—while their COMAC-rooted systems engineering approach offers a more rigorous pathway to airworthiness than startups taking piecemeal technology approaches.
Technical Details
- Airframe & Configuration: ET9 uses a compound wing layout with four axes and eight propellers, separating lift and tail-thrust units; 5-passenger/4-seat configuration with max takeoff weight of 2.4 tons, range of 240 km, and max speed of 240 km/h
- Self-Developed EPS: 800V high-voltage electric propulsion system developed over two years; first domestic 2-ton eVTOL to complete verification flights with self-developed propulsion; power system accounts for over one-third of total aircraft cost
- Materials & Manufacturing: Modular design with over 85% carbon fiber composite material usage; exploring automated fiber placement and winding processes to reduce mass production costs
- Redundancy & Safety: Eight independent vertical takeoff and landing units with multi-redundancy design for improved flight stability and fault tolerance; over 800 test flights completed for system validation and flight control algorithm optimization
- Supply Chain Partnerships: Battery system with a leading domestic EV battery company; motor-electric control collaboration with Yingboer; airframe manufacturing with AVIC Tongfei Composite Materials; flight control with Shenzhen Boundary Intelligent Control; avionics with Angji Zhixing
Industry Insight
- The eVTOL industry is reaching an inflection point where systems engineering rigor and airworthiness progress—not just prototype demonstrations—will separate survivors from failures; Yiweit's COMAC pedigree positions it among the early movers likely to achieve certification
- Self-developing the propulsion system, while capital-intensive, provides critical advantages in cost control, supply chain independence, and certification synergy; this strategy may become a differentiator as the industry moves from R&D to production scaling
- The "先货后人" (cargo first, passengers later) product strategy and "technology downscaling, scenario upsizing" approach reflects a pragmatic path to revenue generation and operational data accumulation before tackling the more complex urban air mobility market
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