The six-seat tiltrotor ZG-T6 is the flagship of ZeroG’s planned range of eVTOLs.
Chinese startup Zero Gravity Aircraft Industry has raised almost 100 million yuan ($14 million) in financing, its second round in three months, to fund development and flight testing of its ZG-T6 six-seat tiltrotor electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
Based in Hefei, ZeroG was founded in March 2021 and is developing the two-seat multicopter ZG-ONE, two-seat lift-plus-cruise ZG-VC-2 and flagship ZG-T6. Chinese construction company Nanjing Communications Engineering and the Hefei City Angel Fund led the latest financing round.
The funding will go toward building and flying a full-scale technology demonstrator for the ZG-T6, as well as certification and production of the other models, ZeroG says.
The new financing adds to the nearly 100 million yuan raised by ZeroG in June in an angel-funding round led by Lenovo Venture Capital and Qifu Capital, with participation by Hegang Capital. BlueRun Ventures, which provided 10 million yuan in seed funding to ZeroG in 2022, increased its investment in both rounds.
According to ZeroG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nanjing Communications Engineering is an early investor in eVTOL and has deployed low-altitude traffic-related operations services, focused initially on aerial tourism but with plans to transition into urban air mobility. The Hefei municipal government initiated the Hefei Angel Fund to support the development of science and technology.
Several Chinese eVTOLs have secured funding in the range of 100-200 million yuan to build full-scale prototypes. They include AeroFugia, TCab Tech, Vertaxi and Volant AeroTech. Other eVTOL, developers such as AutoFlight and and Xpeng AeroHT have raised larger amounts.
