Huayu Xianxiang has completed tens of millions of angel round financing, accelerating the progress o

Hard Krypton learned that eVTOL machine R&D company "Huayu Xianxiang" has recently completed an angel round financing of tens of millions of yuan, led by Hunan Provincial Aviation Fund, and co invested by Changsha Xiangjiang General Aviation Development Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Jinbang Capital. This round of financing will accelerate Huayu Xianxiang's research and development, testing, flight testing, and airworthiness progress in the eVTOL core system.

In January 2022, Shaanxi Huayu Xianxiang was jointly established by Shaanxi Xigong University Science and Technology Park Co., Ltd. and the "Intelligent Aircraft Comprehensive Design Team" of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Northwestern Polytechnical University. The company is committed to the transformation of technological achievements and product research and development of new general aviation aircraft and advanced intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle systems. On August 23, 2023, based on long-term development strategy needs, Huayu Xianxiang was established in Changsha, and it is also the first eVTOL enterprise to settle in Xiangjiang New Area, a national key new area in Hunan Province.

With the development of software and microelectronics technology, battery technology, and aviation electric propulsion technology, a type of aviation propulsion technology called Distributed Electric Propulsion has emerged. As a result, a series of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft using all electric propulsion have been developed in research institutions around the world, abbreviated as eVTOL (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) aircraft.

The main feature of eVTOL is the use of electric or hybrid electric power as the power source for the aircraft; Usually, distributed electric propulsion designs are used with multiple dispersed propellers or ducted fans as thrusters; It can take off and land vertically like traditional helicopters, without the need for an airport runway. The emergence of this type of aircraft has opened up new imaginative space for the development of civil aircraft.

Currently, Huayu Xianxiang is researching two eVTOL models: the Honghu Mark1 and the HY series fixed wing oil electric vertical lift aircraft. The Honghu Mark1 is the flagship product of the Huayu Xianxiang Honghu series eVTOL, dedicated to future urban air transportation. Its main uses include short distance travel, tourism, air sports, passenger transportation, cargo transportation, air ambulance, islands, remote areas, and sub regional logistics in urban clusters.

The "Honghu" eVTOL adopts an aerodynamic layout combining six tiltrotor and three wing surfaces, which is unique among the known eVTOL aircraft designs worldwide.

The front wing, main wing, and horizontal tail are arranged from front to rear, from low to high, and do not interfere with each other at the aerodynamic level. Each wing is in a near ideal working state during horizontal flight; The tilting propeller nacelle is arranged at the wingtips of three sets of wings. Due to the layout characteristics of the three wing surfaces mentioned above, the propellers do not interfere with each other in both vertical and horizontal cruising flight states, ensuring optimal efficiency; The front wing propeller glide flow passes below the main wing, which can achieve favorable interference with the aircraft's main wing flaps, increase the aircraft's lift during the transition process, broaden the aircraft's transition safety corridor, and improve the safety of the aircraft in the transition state.

The three wing aerodynamic layout also gives the aircraft excellent anti stall characteristics and higher safety compared to conventional layouts. Due to the fact that the front wing bears a portion of the lift of the aircraft, compared to similar tiltrotor aircraft, under the same load index, the main wing span of the aircraft is smaller, the parking size is smaller, and under the same main wing span, the total lift is greater and the load capacity is stronger; It can also make the aircraft have better scalability than conventional layouts, that is, when it is necessary to develop aircraft models with larger payload capacity, it does not affect the overall layout of the aircraft.

At present, the company's "Honghu" series eVTOL has completed the full process flight of three different sized scaled prototypes, and all have been successfully tested. In the future, Huayu Xianxiang plans to launch the technical verification of the aircraft and develop the core system of the aircraft.

In terms of the team, founder and CEO Bai Zhiliang studied undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in Aircraft Design, Aerodynamics, Aerospace Science and Technology at Northwestern Polytechnical University. He has won the championship of the "Aero Design" Innovative Civil Aircraft Design Competition in Dassault, France, as well as several other domestic and foreign aircraft design competitions/first prizes. He has rich experience in aircraft design, distributed electric propulsion, flight testing, and other fields. Professor Zhang Wei, co-founder and chief scientist of the company, is the head of the intelligent aircraft comprehensive design team at the School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University. He has been deeply involved in the design of new concept aircraft, flight control system, and test aircraft technology for many years. He has led the establishment of national and provincial key laboratories such as the "Key Laboratory of Aircraft Electric Propulsion Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology" and the "Shaanxi Province Test Aircraft Design and Test Technology Engineering Laboratory". The remaining team members mainly come from Northwestern Polytechnical University and China Aviation Industry Group. They have participated in national projects such as the domestically produced C919 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, as well as pre research on final assembly drones. The team's disciplines cover the entire research and development lifecycle of aircraft.

Investor's viewpoint:

The investment manager of Hunan Provincial Aviation Fund stated that the Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2023 officially included the low altitude economy as a strategic emerging industry, marking the transition of the eVTOL industry from being poised to take off. The development of eVTOL aircraft is conducive to the development of low altitude economy, and also fills the market gap of air passenger and cargo transportation, creating new demand for air transportation. We are optimistic about this track. The Huayu Xianxiang team has been involved in this field for many years and has extensive experience in aircraft design and development. They are the early rising stars in this field. Now, they have landed in Hunan, enjoying the policy of "full area low altitude opening up" and aiming to