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21st Century Business Herald reporter Chen Zhi reports from Shanghai

As the country actively supports the development of low-altitude economic industries, capital from all walks of life is rushing into this new track.

Data shows that by the end of last year, there were 74 equity financing events in the field of industrial drones alone, with a total investment and financing scale of 7.652 billion yuan. Especially with the accelerated development of the low-altitude economic industry, equity financing in the industrial drone track hit a historical high last year, reaching 3.33 billion yuan.

Behind this is the increasing effective load capacity and longer full-load endurance of industrial drones. They are being widely used in many scenarios such as emergency rescue, emergency communications, forest fire fighting, material delivery, power lifting, logistics support, scientific research mounting, etc., presenting broad space for industry development.

Especially in the heavy-load industrial drone segment, capital investment enthusiasm is even higher.

In April, Chongqing Tuohang Technology Co., Ltd., which focuses on the research and development of heavy-load unmanned helicopters, received tens of millions of yuan in Series A equity financing from Jinyumaowu.

It is worth noting that there are also heavy-load industrial drone R&D companies that have declined the investment olive branches thrown by venture capital institutions and chose to "embrace" industrial capital such as listed companies.

Recently, Green Energy Smart Charge (600212.sh) decided to spend 62.7 million yuan to carry out a controlling acquisition of Jiaxing Zhongchuang Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongchuang Aviation"). After the completion of the acquisition, Green Energy Smart Charge will hold a 57% stake in Zhongchuang Aviation.

According to information, the Zhongchuang Aviation team began to deeply develop unmanned helicopter flight control technology in 2008 and has more than 10 years of research and development experience. It is currently one of the few companies in China that has the ability to develop both unmanned helicopter flight control systems and flight platforms.

"This allows companies to quickly develop corresponding heavy-load industrial drones based on different application scenarios," said Huang Hai, CEO of Zhongchuang Aviation, in an exclusive interview with our reporter. At present, the maximum payload and maximum take-off weight of the company's ZC500 series industrial drones have reached 260KG and 650KG respectively, and have been widely used in emergency rescue, emergency communications, forest fire fighting, material delivery, power hoisting and other scenarios.

He told reporters that the reason why Zhongchuang Aviation "chose" Green Energy Smart Charge was that it saw that the listed company could continue to provide financial support for capacity expansion, and secondly, many of Green Energy Smart Charge's customers also had heavy-load industrial drone application needs. For example, Green Energy Smart Charge cooperated with large domestic power grid companies and petroleum and petrochemical companies in the charging pile business. At the same time, these large power grids and petroleum and petrochemical companies also had extensive power hoisting and plateau mountain energy exploration needs. In the past, these companies could only "open up mountains and roads" by manpower to transport equipment to the destination, but by transporting materials with heavy-load industrial drones, they can not only reduce the cost of manpower transportation, but also reduce the risk of personnel safety accidents.

A person from Green Energy Smart Charging told the reporter that the reason they decided to carry out a controlling acquisition of Zhongchuang Aviation was that they were optimistic about the broad development prospects of heavy-load industrial drones in the future. Through marketing empowerment and financial support, they hope that the latter can become a new business growth point for the listed company.

The reporter learned that many investors are currently optimistic about the heavy-load industrial drone track. Another important factor is the optimistic outlook for the future "going overseas" of this track. If the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict leads to the relaxation of drone export management policies by relevant state departments, China's heavy-load industrial drones will rely on their technological advantages and rich operating experience in different scenarios to gain greater business growth space in the global market.

"At present, a major challenge for the development of the heavy-load industrial UAV industry is that as the effective load continues to increase, the corresponding flight control system, UAV structure, and power system may all be affected, requiring new iterative upgrades." A partner of a venture capital institution who has been paying close attention to the UAV track pointed out to reporters.

Huang Hai pointed out that the company has accumulated a large amount of technical research and development reserves and scenario application experience, which will help to continuously increase the effective load of industrial drones while showing extremely high stability and safety in use, and help China's heavy-load industrial drone industry develop with high quality.

Capital is competing for the heavy-duty industrial drone segment

In recent years, with the rapid rise of the low-altitude economic industry, more and more capital has begun to pay attention to the development prospects of the industrial drone track.

"In fact, in the trillion-dollar low-altitude economy, about 80% of the application scenarios in the future may belong to industrial drones," said the partner of the above-mentioned venture capital firm who has been paying close attention to the drone track. The reason is that the application scenarios of industrial drones may greatly exceed market expectations. For example, the transportation of materials between islands and land, in mountainous and plateau areas; as well as power hoisting, emergency rescue, forest fire fighting, etc. in remote areas.

The reporter noted that this has driven more and more capital to extend investment olive branches to industrial drone R&D companies in recent years. Last year alone, the equity financing amount of this segment hit a historical high of 3.33 billion yuan.

At the same time, as the industrial drone industry has just started, venture capital's equity investment in this track is mainly early-stage investment. Data shows that as of the end of last year, the financing rounds of the domestic industrial drone industry mainly occurred in the angel round and the A round, reaching 14 and 19 respectively.

Huang Hai told reporters that Zhongchuang Aviation initially focused on the research and development of industrial drone flight control systems, and has gradually begun to get involved in industrial drone production in the past few years.

In his opinion, only when enterprises master the research and development capabilities of flight control systems can industrial drones be "competent" for the use needs of different scenarios and present high safety and reliability. Behind this is that heavy-duty industrial drones need to be equipped with special equipment for different application scenarios, but whether these equipment can play the expected role mainly depends on the "management" of the flight control system - to a certain extent, the performance of the flight control system greatly affects whether the actual application effect of industrial drones in different scenarios can meet expectations.

The aforementioned partner of the venture capital firm who has been paying close attention to the drone track told reporters that they had previously visited a number of industrial drone research and development companies and found that their strengths were mainly concentrated in the design and construction of drone structures, but the core flight control systems and power systems still needed to be purchased from outside, resulting in their products being less "adaptable" to certain application scenarios than expected.

"There are only a few domestic companies that have the ability to independently develop flight control systems and flight platforms," ​​he told reporters. This is also a major reason why most of the early equity investments in the industrial drone track are made. Many venture capital institutions still hope that companies can first improve their internal strength - developing independent, controllable and high-performance flight control systems and power systems.

The reporter learned that thanks to the self-developed flight control system and tandem twin-rotor structure design, the ZC series industrial UAVs of Zhongchuang Aviation have a payload of 100-200KG, a full-load endurance of more than 1 hour, and have strong anti-disturbance capabilities, high stability, and low failure rate. They are used in forest fire fighting, island transportation, emergency rescue, logistics support, power lifting and other scenarios.

At present, China is also at the forefront of the world in the field of heavy-load industrial drone technology research and development. Compared with Western countries' industrial drones with a load capacity of about 100KG, Chinese products not only have a higher load capacity, but also have rich operating experience in many practical application scenarios.

This has led to more and more investors being optimistic that heavy-load industrial drones will soon create tangible high growth in performance.

"Since the beginning of this year, corporate orders have continued to grow. This is because more and more companies have found that in certain business scenarios, the efficiency and safety of using heavy-load industrial drones to transport materials or conduct business are higher than manual operations." Huang Hai told reporters.

Why are companies keen to "embrace" industrial capital mergers and acquisitions?

It is worth noting that faced with investment offers from various capitals, heavy-load industrial drone R&D companies also have more diversified capital operation options.

The reporter noticed that compared with venture capital actively engaging in equity investment, industrial capital such as listed companies have also intervened in this new track through mergers and acquisitions.

Data shows that in recent years, there have been more and more cases of industrial capital acquisitions in the field of industrial drones, whether it is horizontal integration of industrial drones or comprehensive integration of the industrial chain. For example, Zhonghaida has successively acquired 39.8% of the shares of Shenzhen Zhongming Surveying Co., Ltd. and 10% of the shares of Zhengzhou Lianrui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., Zongshen Power has acquired 16% of the shares of Aerospace Shenzhou Aircraft Co., Ltd., and Aerospace Rainbow has acquired 21.04% of the shares of Zhejiang Nanyang Technology Co., Ltd.

Recently, Green Energy Smart Charging has also joined this camp.

The above-mentioned Green Energy Smart Charging person revealed to reporters that after completing the controlling acquisition of Zhongchuang Aviation, the company will actively support the latter to expand its production capacity, and through extensive marketing empowerment, strive to build the heavy-load industrial drone business into the "second growth curve" of the listed company.

"After acquiring the charging pile business a few years ago, the company has accumulated many large-scale petroleum, petrochemical and power grid enterprise resources. They have extensive mountain and plateau energy exploration and power lifting needs. The material delivery service of heavy-duty industrial drones will further improve their business efficiency and reduce the risk of safety accidents." He analyzed to reporters.

Huang Hai said that the brand effect and customer business cooperation relationship of the listed company will help Zhongchuang Aviation to strengthen its connection with power grids and petroleum and petrochemical enterprises more smoothly, and help the latter to complete power hoisting and mountain plateau energy exploration more efficiently. This is also one of the reasons why he declined the investment olive branches of many venture capital institutions and "joined hands" with Green Energy Smart Charging.

In his opinion, as the development of the low-altitude economic industry has led to a period of rapid development for heavy-load industrial drones, companies need to build up market first-mover advantages as soon as possible and establish product competitive advantages in many scenarios such as forest fire fighting, material transportation, emergency rescue, emergency communications, and power lifting in order to obtain greater industry development dividends.

The aforementioned partner of the venture capital firm who has been paying close attention to the drone track believes that with the development of the low-altitude economic industry, the relevant departments’ opening-up measures to the low-altitude economy in the future may adopt a “carrying goods first, then people” strategy, allowing heavy-loaded industrial drones to obtain a wider range of practical application scenarios and performance growth foundations before eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles).

"Recently, more capital is pouring into the industrial drone segment because they are looking forward to it - if the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict leads relevant departments to relax drone export management measures, China's industrial drones may follow consumer drones and show their prowess in the international market in the future. After all, many countries are also actively developing the industrial drone industry to solve local emergency rescue, material transportation, logistics support and other needs, bringing a huge market pie for China's industrial drones to go overseas." He emphasized.