2022 Comes to a Close with Fresh Round of Funding for 2 eVTOL Makers

As the year is coming to an end, both EHang and Eve are ending strong with a fresh round of capital from key investors.

On 12/23, EHang announced a $10M USD investment and strategic partnership with Qingdao West Coast New Area, one of China’s national new areas in Shandong province. This partnership comes with a potential additional investment of $10M USD in the future. 

Through this strategic partnership, EHang plans to develop its eVTOL business and bolster the market in Qingdao with the goal to make Qingdao a world-class UAM application demonstration area. Additionally, EHang intends to establish a Northeast Asia regional headquarters as well as a national firefighting business center in Qingdao West Coast New Area. Qingdao West Coast New Area will facilitate the local governments’ applications of EHang’s full range of products while providing comprehensive support to the company’s local business operations, sales and services, production and infrastructure construction, among other things.

Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, Embraer’s Eve secured a $92.5M USD line of credit from the National Development Bank of Brazil. This investment will mature over 12 years and will help fund the development and production of Eve’s eVTOL model.

The agreement reinforces cash reserves at Eve, which on December 23 reported a net loss of $36.7 million for the third quarter of 2022. This was almost 10 times the $3.8 million loss the company reported for the same period in 2021. The company said the increased loss was due to a significant uptick in research and development costs as the program progressed.

Why it matters: Many eVTOL makers are starting to leave R&D mode and head for flight test and production of their eVTOL prototypes. With this transition comes a fresh demand for capital for these efforts. With these two investments, EHang and Eve should be well positioned to continue pursuing their eVTOL dreams.