Drone explosion? Nearly $200M has been poured into China’s drone industry in the past few months

China’s economy may have hit some turbulence this week, but its drone industry sure didn’t. Hot on the heels of Ehang’s US$42 million series B earlier this week, yet another Chinese drone startup has raised a big round. This time it’s Yuneec, which has bagged a big US$60 million round from Intel.

So, China’s drone startups have raised more then US$100 million in the past week. Extend the clock back a few months to include DJI’s US$75 million round and Aheadx’s multimillion-dollar seed round, and the counter gets pretty close to US$200 million.

Why are investors pouring their money into Chinese drone startups? It’s an obvious growth market. The global consumer drone industry is expected to climb to a value of nearly US$4 billion over the next ten years. Given that drone technology also has numerous commercial and military applications (the defense drone market is already worth around US$8 billion), the future for drone growth looks bright. And DJI’s global success has already demonstrated that Chinese tech companies are more than capable of leading this market.

Just how many of China’s drone startups can prosper in the long-term is another question, though. Aheadx is clearly the odd man out; having only just raised a seed round it seems to be relatively behind its competitors in terms of growth. But the other three companies that have recently raised funds – DJI, Yuneec, and Ehang – all have relatively similar product offerings at comparable price points. All three also seem to have good reviews on global ecommerce sites, meaning that consumers don’t seem to have chosen a favorite. In the short-term, at least, it seems that anybody with a strong enough product offering will be able to make a splash in the space.

But will DJI, Yuneec, and Ehang be content to share the Chinese drone pie, or is China in for a new era of (consumer) drone warfare?