Air-taxi firm raises US$20m and plans to expand into Middle East
An air taxi at an airport in Hengdian, Zhejiang Province, ready for a trial flight.
Shanghai's air taxi company TCab Tech said it has raised US$20 million in investment and will expand into the Middle East, riding the low-altitude economy wave, a booming sector in the stock market and a future industry in Shanghai.
The air-taxi business paints a vision where people will be able to fly from Shanghai to Suzhou in less than 20 minutes in an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, a quarter of a car trip, without risks like road congestion, according to the company's website.
The US$20 million raised in Series A financing, coming from a strategic investment fund, will boost product commercialization and help it introduce its air taxi business into the Middle East, the company said.
Apart from China, which has been identified by many reports as the single largest market for air-taxis, there's strong demand in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the "Belt and Road" regions. These fast-developing regions would benefit from integrating air-taxis into their transport infrastructure for aerial-sightseeing and inter-city travel, TCab said.
Makers of eVTOLs are eyeing overseas markets, such as the Middle East.
Compared to helicopters and other models, electric vertical take-off and landing, or eVTOL, devices have lower manufacturing and operating costs, are expected to be green and noiseless, and suitable for large-scale population areas.
A majority of leading eVTOL firms in China, such as TCab and Vertaxi, are based in Shanghai. The city views eVTOL as "a new track and a future industry," said the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization, the city-level regulator.
TCab's passenger-carrying E20 eVTOL features seats for a pilot and four passengers. The eVTOL targets a maximum design range of 200km, and a cruising speed of 260km/h. It is most efficient for commuting between 30km and 150km, such as a trip of around 80km from Shanghai to neighboring Suzhou.
The eVTOL companies are preparing and making trial flights in Shanghai and neighboring cities, waiting for final commercial flight approval from regulators.
Though still with few commercially eVTOL flights, firms related to the companies – from component suppliers, designers to material providers – surged in the Chinese stock market recently. Some eVTOL-related shares jumped 30 to 50 percent within a week.
The size of China's low-altitude economy as of the end of 2023 is estimated at more than 500 billion yuan (US$70 billion), with its scale expected to rise to 2 trillion yuan by 2030, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said at a press conference last month.
