As a national emerging strategic industry, the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) industry has become a crucial force in advancing modernization, driving technological innovation, and strengthening/ supplementing industrial chains. In recent years, China has successively issued a series of policies and guidelines, such as the Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Development of the General Aviation Industry and the Implementation Plan for Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment (2024-2030). Driven by both national policies and technological revolution, the UAV industry has developed rapidly—it not only plays an increasingly prominent role in economic and social development but also serves as a key engine for boosting China’s low-altitude economy.

Benefiting from this era of opportunities, China’s domestic UAV industry has grown by leaps and bounds. It has not only ranked first in global UAV export volume for consecutive years but also accounted for over 70% of global UAV patent applications. Around 2022, China’s low-altitude economy entered a fast track of vigorous development, with a substantial market scale and continuously expanding application scenarios. This attracted numerous entrepreneurs to enter the field, and Wan Qian was among them. Combining his work experience and market demand, Wan Qian finally decided to devote himself to the tethered UAV industry and founded MAIUAV, embarking on his entrepreneurial journey. Today, MAIUAV has stood out as one of the fast-growing local enterprises in Nanjing.

Wan Qian graduated from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. Before founding MAIUAV, he had long been engaged in the UAV field, accumulating rich technical expertise and industry experience. In 2021, relying on his years of valuable experience in the industry and keen insight into the international market, Wan Qian founded MAIUAV after drawing on advanced experience and concepts from the European UAV sector. This company not only carries his passion and pursuit for UAV technology but also embodies his vision of integrating advanced European concepts with the actual needs of the Chinese market.

In recent years, the rise and popularity of the low-altitude economy concept have paved a broad path for the development of the UAV industry—especially tethered UAVs. However, it also highlighted a long-standing bottleneck in the domestic UAV market: insufficient endurance, which has long hindered the widespread promotion of UAV products. At that time, the battery materials used in UAVs had not achieved technological breakthroughs, making it impossible to meet the demand for long-term power supply for UAVs. Facing this challenge, Wan Qian, with his profound technical accumulation in the industry and forward-looking strategic vision, targeted the industry pain point of long endurance. He joined hands with another like-minded partner and resolutely embarked on a journey of exploration and innovation in tethered UAVs.

Regarding the company’s location, Wan Qian firmly set his sights on Nanjing. He admitted, "The main reason for locating the company in Nanjing is its solid industrial foundation and abundant university resources." At that time, Nanjing had already become a major hub for the development of China’s low-altitude economy. The UAV industry thrived on this fertile ground, forming a complete industrial chain covering R&D and design, whole-machine manufacturing, operation services, and diversified industrial applications, demonstrating strong vitality and competitiveness.

At the beginning of its establishment, Wan Qian and his co-founder started their entrepreneurial journey with just one office and two workstations, full of ambition and passion. Restricted by the small scale of the enterprise in its early stages, the products were almost "handmade" by the two founders. In addition, as China’s UAV industry was still in a relatively fledgling stage at that time, the market was immature. MAIUAV’s products were relatively new to the domestic market, and their application scenarios needed to be developed. Therefore, how to open up the market and survive became an urgent problem for MAIUAV at that time. Faced with numerous difficulties, Wan Qian and his partner did not back down. Relying on the belief that "those who persist are the brave" and their solid technical strength, they continued to explore the market and actively leveraged "external forces" to promote the company’s development.

By chance, Wan Qian learned about the "Ningju Plan" (a Nanjing initiative to attract and retain talents) through a friend. The "Ningju Plan" provides a variety of preferential policies and financial support for young entrepreneurial talents starting businesses in Nanjing. With a trial attitude, Wan Qian applied to participate in the quarterly selection of Nanjing’s Outstanding Youth College Student Entrepreneurship Projects and successfully obtained angel financing from Nanjing Innovation Investment Group and special fund support from the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security.

The angel investment team of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group stated: "Early-stage investment is essentially investing in people. After careful investigation, we found that the founding team has a firm entrepreneurial determination and rich industry experience, and the core products can accurately address market pain points. Therefore, we have high expectations for MAIUAV’s development prospects."

After successfully securing the angel investment, MAIUAV, recommended by the Venture Capital Group, also settled in the Venture Capital Group Angel Fund Innovation Service Center located in Haizhiwan · Shaohua Workshop in Jianye District, Nanjing, officially establishing a comprehensive center integrating R&D and sales. Currently, MAIUAV has built a relatively mature product system that not only covers most application scenarios such as emergency rescue, relay communication, and spraying/cleaning but also boasts outstanding product performance. This has enabled the company to gradually accumulate a group of enterprises with long-term and stable cooperative relationships in the industry.

"This investment is of great significance to MAIUAV. On the one hand, as a well-known and influential state-owned capital, the investment from Nanjing Innovation Investment Group is an affirmation of our cause and achievements, injecting a ‘shot in the arm’ for us to continue moving forward. On the other hand, this investment has also helped MAIUAV shape its brand image. MAIUAV has been ‘seen’ by more upstream and downstream manufacturers, laying a solid foundation for opening up the domestic market later," Wan Qian said. For MAIUAV, the support from Nanjing Innovation Investment Group is not only financial—it has more importantly strengthened MAIUAV’s determination to deepen its focus on the tethered UAV field, reinforced its confidence in the development prospects of the domestic UAV market, and provided convenience for its expansion into the domestic market.

Through the precise and timely injection of capital and refined post-investment empowerment, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group has helped MAIUAV grow steadily and smoothly pass through its startup phase. In turn, MAIUAV’s growth has contributed to the structural optimization and functional upgrading of Nanjing’s UAV industrial chain. This has built an ecosystem where capital and industry are deeply coupled and mutually promoted, injecting strong impetus into the sustained prosperity of Nanjing’s UAV industry and fully releasing investment benefits.

Currently, the low-altitude economy is showing unprecedented vitality and potential. The national policy level continues to release positive signals, and a series of favorable policies have laid a solid foundation for the development of the tethered UAV industry. The development prospects of this field remain very broad in the future. Regarding the future development trend of the tethered UAV industry, Wan Qian said: "The future development of the tethered UAV field will mainly occur on the application side. How to conduct in-depth research on user needs, application scenarios, and usage habits will be the more challenging aspects in the future. Whoever can perfectly solve these problems will gain a foothold in the tethered UAV field."

At present, the application scenarios of tethered UAVs in China are still relatively narrow. Therefore, the future development direction of tethered UAV manufacturers is inseparable from the exploration of new application scenarios. Manufacturers need to go deep into the market, stay close to users, and work with users in real production and life to identify and explore market pain points and needs, and then propose corresponding solutions. However, Wan Qian also mentioned that tethered UAV equipment is relatively expensive. Many domestic companies are worried that the equipment may not match the application side well in the end, resulting in high trial-and-error costs. Therefore, developing new scenarios is not an easy task.

Faced with a situation full of both challenges and opportunities, how will MAIUAV break through? Wan Qian said: "The tethered UAV industry is a technology-intensive industry with high product R&D difficulty and fast iteration speed. Therefore, our demand for talents is very urgent, and the company will also continue to invest in R&D every year." Through continuous investment in technology and talents, MAIUAV has built a solid technical barrier. It can also alleviate the endurance pain point that plagues the market through technological means, maintaining a leading position in the market in terms of product design and performance. At the same time, Wan Qian also said: "MAIUAV will also cooperate with customers to conduct on-site inspections and professionally evaluate their projects to ensure that our equipment can match the customers’ demand scenarios." By doing so, MAIUAV gains a deep understanding of users’ actual needs and difficulties, providing customers with more scenario-specific customized services and enhancing their product experience. In addition, Wan Qian believes that "using some benchmark projects to achieve in-depth recognition of product applications through point-to-area promotion" is also an important reason for MAIUAV to win the market.

For Wan Qian, his years of experience in exploring the overseas market have accumulated valuable experience and usable market foundations for MAIUAV’s global expansion. The overseas market has also become an important breakthrough point for the company’s future growth. Unlike many manufacturing enterprises that need to face the stereotype of "Made in China" when going global, MAIUAV, relying on the wide recognition and high reputation of China’s UAV industry worldwide, proudly displays its "Made in China" logo to the world. China’s UAV industry, with its leading technology and cost-performance advantages, has laid a solid foundation of trust for MAIUAV’s global journey. Currently, MAIUAV has successfully built a unique brand image and far-reaching market influence in the overseas market, and established a stable and long-term cooperative network with many international counterparts, thus realizing the steady advancement and continuous deepening of its global strategy.

In the current fierce market competition landscape, the leadership of products and technology is regarded as the cornerstone and soul of an enterprise’s core competitiveness. MAIUAV plans to continue focusing on enhancing its core competitiveness in the future, deeply tapping and consolidating its existing technological and market advantages. Through continuous R&D investment, it will set higher technical barriers to ensure its leading position in the field of high-power tethered UAV systems, and drive the transformation of the tethered UAV industry from "Made in China" to "Intelligent Manufacturing in China". At the same time, MAIUAV will also follow the national policy orientation, keep up with the market trend of the vigorous development of China’s low-altitude economy, and flexibly adjust its strategic layout to seize market opportunities. Wan Qian said: "MAIUAV strives to become a leading brand in China’s high-power tethered UAV system field within the next 1 to 2 years."

MAIUAV’s achievements reflect the vigorous development of small and medium-sized enterprises in China’s hard technology field. MAIUAV’s global journey is also a vivid practice of "Intelligent Manufacturing in China" going global and participating in global competition, marking China’s magnificent transformation from a follower and parallel runner to a leader in the global high-tech field. It is expected that with the rise of technological innovation SMEs like MAIUAV, "Intelligent Manufacturing in China" will continue to go global with a more open attitude and more innovative thinking, writing a new chapter in technological innovation and social development.