WeFly Aviation has completed a Series A financing of nearly 100 million yuan. Its "Cloud Bear" has recorded a total accumulated flight mileage of over 12,000 kilometers and has been granted a special flight permit | 36Kr Exclusive
Text | A Zhi
"Airborne Wuling" is accelerating its implementation in low-altitude economy scenarios.
36Kr has learned that WeFly Aviation, an R&D and manufacturer of cost-effective general-purpose unmanned transport aircraft, has completed a Series A financing of nearly 100 million yuan, led by Zigong General Aviation Industry Development Equity Investment Fund, with continuous follow-on investment from Aero Engine Fund. The funds from this round will be mainly used for R&D and trial production of new technologies and new models, as well as accelerating the airworthiness certification process of mature models and market expansion related to scenario implementation.
Founded in October 2020, WeFly Aviation focuses on the R&D and manufacturing of large general-purpose unmanned transport aircraft that integrate "reliability, practicality and cost-effectiveness", and is an enterprise that 36Kr has long been following. Xu Chun, founder and general manager, once served as deputy operation director in a unicorn enterprise, has more than 10 years of operation and management experience in listed companies, and has also experienced two relatively unsuccessful technology startups, making him a serial entrepreneur.
Its flagship product, the Cloud Bear series WZ500, is positioned as "Wuling Hongguang in the low-altitude field", which in short means "rugged, durable and affordable".
Cloud Bear WZ500
The first-generation Cloud Bear series WZ500 is fully independently forward-designed and developed by WeFly Aviation. With a standard payload of 500 kg, its full-load range exceeds 500 km, and its cabin volume is over 5m³, which can accommodate at least two standard pallets that meet the GJB1918A-2015 standard. This "dual 500" specification choice is an entry point to understand WeFly Aviation's product definition and its judgment on the "maverick" development path.
In the stratification of the global air cargo market, trunk lines over 1000 km are mainly served by full cargo aircraft, passenger-to-cargo converted aircraft and passenger aircraft belly holds from Boeing, Airbus and COMAC; for the end market within 300 km, road transportation remains the more effective solution. However, the branch line time-sensitive transport capacity between counties and hubs, or between counties and prefecture-level cities in the interval between the two ranges, has long lacked appropriate production tools, leading to a gap in high-end time-sensitive express delivery solutions, and many scenario applications have not yet been developed.
This long-neglected branch line segment is not without demand support.
Data from the State Post Bureau shows that the national express business volume has increased from 108.3 billion pieces in 2021 to 1989.5 billion pieces in 2025, with an average annual growth of about 15.4% over the five years. Among them, counties are the core growth engine.
In terms of urban-rural comparison, the growth rate of rural express business volume in the first half of 2021 was more than 10 percentage points higher than that in urban areas. Liu Jiang, director of the Strategic Planning Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Post Bureau, also pointed out in 2023 that the effect of "delivering express to villages" has emerged, agricultural special products are going up to the market at an accelerated pace, and the growth rate of rural business volume is significantly higher than that of urban areas. In terms of regional structure, the express business volume in the central and western regions reached 37.7 billion pieces in the first three quarters of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 34%. The growth rates in Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Gansu all exceeded 40%, far higher than the 14.9% in the eastern region.
The business volume at the county level is rising year by year, but the product and service capacity on the supply side has not kept up.
In Xu Chun's view, the cost structure of general aviation in the past does not adapt to logistics enterprises: the technology of modified manned aircraft is limited and the space utilization rate is extremely low, and large-tonnage unmanned cargo aircraft are very easy to fall into the misunderstanding of "being big and heavy", which leads to great difficulty in airworthiness, long verification cycle for safety and reliability, and the economic efficiency of single aircraft is divorced from reality. The real commercial operation implementation is nowhere in sight, leaving the county branch line demand with the fastest express delivery growth in recent years unmet.
WeFly Aviation aims at this low-altitude branch line time-sensitive cargo market that is still in the exploration stage.
At the product level, the idea of the Cloud Bear series WZ500 is not to compete for the first place in individual parameters, but to use product definition and engineering capabilities to minimize the comprehensive ownership and use cost, so as to accelerate implementation.
First, do not do "useless work" at the product definition end. Xu Chun mentioned, "We do not blindly pursue the 'single-indicator doctrine' on paper, but reversely take into account customer demand, affordability and the maturity of the industrial chain. We start from the 'dual 500' gear where the transport capacity pain points are concentrated, and gradually iterate with the market development after the first-generation product is verified to be mature."
Second, adhere to 100% independent forward development and independent control of core technologies such as flight control. "WeFly adheres to independent thinking and seeking truth from facts, rejects plagiarism and reverse engineering, reduces security loopholes and intellectual property risks from the source, and greatly compresses the medium and long-term iteration costs."
Third, cross-border integration of the industrial chain, integrating the three supply chains of UAV, general aviation and automotive industry. This model can not only reduce redundant parts, share equipment, space and talents to obtain production capacity synergy, but also further reduce BOM costs.
In other words, the Cloud Bear series WZ500 is more like redeveloped with the cost logic and supply chain of the "automotive industry", aiming to make large general-purpose unmanned transport aircraft products that customers "can afford to buy, afford to fly and afford to maintain". "We need to reach the upper limit of industry cost-performance ratio and the reasonable lower limit of cost," Xu Chun, founder of WeFly Aviation, mentioned earlier.
Reflected in the cost and pricing level, the overall cost of the Cloud Bear series WZ500 can be 1/5 of similar competing products, the single flight platform (basic version) is controlled within 5 million yuan, and the comprehensive cost-effectiveness ratio is controlled in the range of 2.5-4.5 yuan/ton-kilometer.
The operation side design also lowers the service threshold. Under special circumstances, it can take off and land with a sliding distance of only 400 meters, and support simple conditions such as secondary highways and grasslands under extreme conditions. The whole system can complete standard container-style storage, deployment and withdrawal within 3 hours, which facilitates the flexible deployment requirements of "fast transfer, disassembly and go, deployment and fly" in remote areas, areas with seasonal demands or areas with poor infrastructure.
According to the team, the Cloud Bear series WZ500 has successively completed risk subject tests this year, including plateau environment at minus 30 degrees Celsius, sea environment with 95% humidity, Gobi desert, takeoff and landing on combat readiness highways, and isolated flight at civil aviation transport airports.
As of May this year, the cumulative flight mileage of the Cloud Bear series WZ500 has exceeded 12,000 km.
The latest progress is that the civil aviation competent department has officially issued the special flight certificate for civil unmanned aerial vehicles to the Cloud Bear series WZ500 recently, approving it to carry out demonstration and test flights at 4 airports. This means that the design, manufacturing, system reliability and operation safety of this model have received phased recognition, which can further accelerate the product verification and airworthiness certification process.
At the commercialization level, it is reported that the signed purchase intentions of WeFly Aviation have risen to 158 units. The company is cooperating with leading central SOEs to prepare for the cross-sea transport pilot of large unmanned transport aircraft in Hainan Free Trade Zone, and three other pilot routes have also been approved.
The low-altitude economy has clearly defined the development rhythm of "carrying cargo first, then carrying people", and the path of industry competition has become increasingly clear. However, from the overall development stage of the industry, the end of the current low-altitude three-segment logistics has entered the verification period of cost and profit model; the branch line is in the investment period of accelerating technology maturity and product verification, and sprinting for airworthiness certification, rather than the output period of large-scale delivery; the trunk line is still in the theoretical period of unmanned rationality, technical safety and comprehensive cost feasibility.
WeFly Aviation is now in a track that is accelerating and becoming crowded. The new round of financing corresponds to the time window for accelerating iteration and certification. Next, whoever first reduces the single-unit procurement cost and daily operation cost as much as possible, so that the service price can not only fall to the level that end consumers are willing to pay for cross-city time-sensitive express, but also leave profit for express delivery companies, is more likely to get real orders and repurchases.
It is reported that with the maturity of the first-generation Cloud Bear series WZ500, WeFly Aviation will continue to promote the R&D of products with larger payload and longer range to meet the application needs of diversified scenarios in the future.
Investor Comments
Zigong General Aviation Industry Development Equity Investment Fund: Zigong General Aviation Industry Development Equity Investment Fund is the first municipal-level general aviation industry equity investment fund in Sichuan Province, with a total scale of 1.01 billion yuan. Leading the investment in WeFly Aviation in this round is an important measure for the fund to lay out the branch line unmanned cargo track. As the main bearing place of the province's low-altitude economic industrial chain, Zigong will rely on superior airspace resources and complete industrial chain supporting facilities to help WeFly Aviation make coordinated breakthroughs in airworthiness certification, commercial route expansion and other fields, and boost the enterprise to grow into a leading enterprise in the domestic unmanned cargo industry at an accelerated pace.