Drone maker EHANG, which received $ 10 million, will create an SDK for developers

The drones market is still at an early stage, venture investors are more and more interested in startups on this topic. One of the last companies to receive investments is EHANG , which created Ghost Drone, which users can control by tilting their smartphone.

The company announced today that it had received $ 10 million at stage A from GGV Capital with the participation of entrepreneurs Xiaoping Xu, co-founder of ZhenFund; entrepreneur Nick Yang, Sohu's former technical manager; PreAngel fund, which invests at an early stage. EHANG was a TechCrunch finalist in August.

EHANG's co-founder Derrick Xiong says that Round A will help grow the project team, which is now 17 people and is located in Guangzhou, Beijing and San Francisco.

EHANG plans to expand the marketing team to promote, build its own SDK and hopes to hire more people to research and develop their technology.
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Part of the funds will also be directed to the implementation of current pre-orders for Indiegogo , which was aimed at $ 100k, but raised more than $ 640k. Delivery Ghost Drone is scheduled for next month.


EHANG, which means “hundreds of millions of pilots” in Chinese, is going to make drones available for as many people as possible. The company's founders had been working on the technology before the EHANG drones for the past two years, although the company itself was launched only in April.

One of the best-selling Ghost Drone chips is its control using an application on a smartphone, and not a radio controller that is complicated for a newbie and too cumbersome.

Other companies are also developing applications for smartphones including Parrot Bebop drone , which is sold at Apple's online store. EHANG, however, is going to make the most intuitive application that is accessible to understand even a child of five years. The Ghost Drone app uses a smartphone accelerator that allows you to control the drone by simply tilting the phone. Users can tell the drone their destination with a simple tap on the map, and of course you can control the tilt of the GoPro camera from your smartphone.


In addition, EHANG is one of two companies (the other is 3D Robotics ) that work on autopilot functions, which means that the drone can follow the user independently, participating in its activities, such as sports.

Although the creators of EHANG claim that the system is simple enough even for a child, but this is not a child's toy. Price from $ 500 to $ 1000 - Ghost Drone is more expensive than its competitors, to which the founder says that their product is made from better materials and can fly farther and higher than competitors like Parrot Bebop.

In a statement, Jenny Lee, managing partner at GGV Capital, said: “There are many potential applications for drones - from personal to commercial. We are very pleased to work with EHANG, because we like their unique approach to building technology. They rely on mobile apps and unique features that make drones available to everyone. ”

Ghost Drone is aimed at people who want to make creative videos of events and sports from a height, but the SDK project also opens up opportunities for other usage models that creative developers will come up with.