Volant, a Chinese developer of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs), has closed its third funding round this year while Chengwei Capital co-led a $20-million seed round in Tesseract Medicines.
Commercial passenger eVTOL aircraft developer Volant raises $14.1m
Shanghai-based eVTOL aircraft developer Volant Aerotech has closed another nine-digit funding round that takes its total fundraising this year to at least 300 million yuan ($41.4 million).
Volant announced on Tuesday the completion of its latest Series A++ round, through which the startup claimed to have raised a nine-digit investment in Chinese yuan, or at least 100 million yuan ($13.8 million).
QF Capital, a China-based equity investment firm that manages nearly 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), led the extension round, said Volant in a post on its official WeChat account.
Nanshan SEI Investment, a local state-owned investment platform in southern China’s Shenzhen City; and Shanghai-based Dunhong Capital Management participated in the deal, alongside existing shareholder Welight Capital.
The new funding will fund product tests and trial flights of its flagship commercial passenger eVTOL model VE25 X1. The startup also plans to invest the proceeds in the R&D and manufacturing of its new aircraft prototypes to develop new models and further explore market opportunities.
Founded in June 2021, Volant completed this Series A++ round just over one month after it closed a Series A+ round led by Hua Qiang Capital. In early March, the startup also raised 100 million yuan from lead investors including CDH Investments.
Its earlier backers include Shunwei Capital, Future Capital, and Ventech China.
Chengwei Capital, Curie.Bio co-lead $20m seed round in US biotech startup
Chinese venture capital firm Chengwei Capital and biotech VC Curie.Bio have jointly led a $20-million seed round in US-based biotech startup Tesseract Medicines.
The seed funding will allow Tesseract – founded in 2022 and based in Massachusetts, the US – to advance its next-generation targeted therapeutics, Covalent Induced Drug Conjugates, said Tesseract Medicines CEO Peter U. Park in a post on his LinkedIn page on Tuesday.
Tesseract is developing a novel therapeutic modality designed to exploit cancer-specific intracellular proteins for the targeted delivery of cytotoxic payloads, it said in the post.
The investment marks the latest addition to the portfolio of Shanghai-headquartered Chengwei Capital, which has invested in over 150 companies in China since its inception in 1999. With over $3 billion in AUM as of June 2023, the firm has deployed over $2 billion across industries like advanced manufacturing, internet, semiconductors, enterprise services, and healthcare.
In 2004, Chengwei Capital launched its US dollar evergreen fund as arguably China’s first open-ended vehicle to provide more flexibility than closed-end funds.