China agricultural drone maker XAG raises $46m
XAG, a Chinese manufacturer of agricultural drones, has raised RMB300 million ($46 million) in funding from GL Ventures.
This is the third tranche of a Series C. It comes four months after a RMB1.2 billion ($182 million) round led by Baidu Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund II. The first tranche came from Beijing-based cybersecurity company TopSec in 2019.
XAG - which received Series A and B rounds led by Chengwei Capital and Mingtai Capital, respectively, in 2014 and 2016 - claims to be the largest agricultural drone manufacturer globally. It had 1,400 employees and a service area of more than 620 million acres as of last November.
The company claims that 2020 witnessed the start of a new phase of growth, with orders reaching 2.5x the 2019 level and sales rising 253% year-on-year, according to Bin Peng, the founder and CEO.
XAG has six product lines covering various aspects of agricultural automation: unmanned drones, remote sensing drones, unmanned vehicles, autonomous driving equipment, internet-of-things applications, and smart farm management software.
The company was founded in 2007 as Xaircraft with an initial focus on industrial drones. After witnessing the hardships of farmers during a visit to the western region of Xinjiang in 2013, management decided to change direction and focus on the agricultural sector. XAG claimed a 50% share of China's agricultural drone market as of 2019.
“XAG has established a set of intelligent agricultural solutions combining robots and unmanned drones. It can greatly improve the efficiency of agricultural production and achieve carbon emission reductions, which is consistent with our long-term belief in green and sustainable development," said Liming Huang, a partner at GL Ventures, in a statement.
China is a dominant force in the drone space, with DJI accounting for around 70% of the global consumer drone segment as of March 2020. DJI is one of numerous companies that have received VC funding. Others include Ehang and Yuneec. Rising competition is said to have encouraged differentiation through the development of niche capabilities.
China Renaissance served as the exclusive financial advisor for XAG's latest funding round.
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