Yunji Avionics raises Pre-Series A to build China's homegrown aircraft 'brain'
What's the deal? Yunji Avionics Intelligent TechnologyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Chinese startup developing integrated avionics systems, has raised a Pre-Series A round, 36Kr reports.
Investors include Haihe Industrial FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Yizhuang New City Industrial, Houtian CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Chengdu Science and Technology Innovation InvestmentDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Zhongli FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The funds will go towards R&D, airworthiness certification, and expanding production capacity.
Founded in 2022, Yunji wants to build an independent, full-stack avionics system — the "brain" of an aircraft — and break a market long dominated by foreign giants.
Why now? Four companies — HoneywellDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Collins AerospaceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Thales, and GE — control more than 80% of the avionics market.
For China, homegrown avionics underpin supply-chain security and are a prerequisite for domestic civil aircraft, eVTOLs, and other new models to control costs and reach commercialisation.
Yunji has now closed three rounds in under eight months, following an angel round led by the Beijing Economic Development Area Seed Investment Fund.
What could go wrong? Avionics demands long-term investment over a decade, and Yunji is still early.
Its flagship YJ-500E has been installed on aircraft including the RX1E-A, AC311A, and WZ-11, and entered flight-test and certification stages. It expects its first airworthiness certification in the second half of 2026 — a milestone it has yet to clear before small-scale delivery can begin.
Founder Li Bei is wary of hot money. "Institutions will only invest when you actually present tangible results," he said, arguing that financing pace tracks strategic milestones, not market hype.
The signal: Yunji's backing comes almost entirely from state-linked industrial and innovation funds — Haihe Industrial Fund, Yizhuang New City Industrial, Chengdu Science and Technology Innovation Investment, and the Beijing Economic Development Area Seed Investment Fund — underlining how China's avionics push is being driven by government-aligned capital rather than market hype. For an early-stage company still chasing its first airworthiness certification, that patient, state-backed money is what makes a decade-long bet against Honeywell and Collins Aerospace feasible.
Read more: 36Kr
