Damoda seeks working drone swarms after a decade of light shows

Over the National Day holiday, Damoda flew drone displays in Nanchang, Yichang and Kunming, promoting what it calls a low-altitude media business that combines low-altitude operations, cultural tourism and media distribution. The performances are not its main source of revenue. Company disclosures cited by Leiphone show equipment sales account for about 70 percent of overall revenue, while R&D staff make up about 40 percent. Drone swarm equipment and technical systems are the core of the business.

In Nanchang, Damoda cited official notices showing the show stayed on Douyin's hot list for seven consecutive days, generated online reach in the 5 billion range and drew more than 50 percent out-of-town visitors on October 1. Yichang drew about 700,000 on-site spectators. In Kunming, with no advance notice, the show appeared on Xinwen Lianbo that night. Qin Haiqun, Damoda's deputy general manager and head of technical support, said traffic prices are high, and the cost of a drone show corresponds to hundreds of millions or billions of exposures online. Damoda judges that drone performances are shifting from a festive addition to a traffic necessity for brands and cultural tourism clients.

The company points to Chongqing as the most valuable industry example for its low-altitude media model. The starting point was a 3,000-drone display for the 2025 CCTV Spring Festival Gala's Chongqing venue. Qin recalled that rehearsals were held before dawn to reduce spoilers, but crowds still gathered and local authorities did not want the shows to stop, leading to continued performances through the fifteenth day of the lunar new year. Chongqing then launched regular shows, increasing from 2,000 drones to a fixed 5,000-drone performance every Saturday and on holidays. Damoda describes it as the world's largest long-term resident drone show, supported by drone nests and automatic charging for continuous flight.

The Chongqing operation also showed a market mechanism, according to company-cited official notices. During nearly a year of operation, the shows drew more than 11 million on-site spectators and 11 billion views on official platforms. They helped drive 41.9 billion yuan in cultural tourism consumption in Nan'an district, up about 9 percent year on year, while Spring Festival restaurant revenue in the core Two Rivers and Four Banks area rose nearly 30 percent. The government treated the night sky as an advertising billboard and solicited sponsors; brands including Changan, Tencent and Mixue Bingcheng joined. Project revenue exceeded 40 million yuan, fully covering investment, according to the company. The model has been introduced in Hong Kong, Jinan and Yangzhou. For governments, Damoda says, it turns a fiscal expense into a self-sustaining traffic business; for the company, each show is also a showcase for equipment sales.

Overseas is Damoda's fastest-growing line. It entered the market in 2020 and has grown sales 45-fold in five years, covering more than 50 countries and regions, with core markets in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Order sizes have changed. Before 2025, overseas customers typically bought 200 or 300 drones as a trial. In 2026, order volumes jumped. A large German LED screen manufacturer bought 800 drones in November last year, repurchased 1,000 early this year and most recently placed an order for 5,000. In Uzbekistan, a new customer bought drones in July and flew them the next month, with a single video getting tens of thousands of likes on TikTok and Instagram. A Thai customer's video of a Vietnam 50th anniversary celebration received more than 1 million likes on TikTok. Overseas, Damoda usually sells equipment and supporting technology rather than running shows. Qin said overseas customs clearance can take two weeks and batteries are difficult to return after export, making time costs much higher than in China. The company opens design resources, pilot resources and a library of tens of thousands of creative scripts to partners, delivering script design capability as well. He said overseas clients are more active and can even produce better content, creating a positive cycle.

The technology base is fully self-developed. Damoda has more than 300 employees, with nearly half in R&D. On hardware, it has switched from imported core components to full domestic production. Qin recalled that early third-generation products used foreign F9P positioning modules, which were expensive and carried the risk of supply cutoff. By the later third generation and fourth generation, domestic chips fully met requirements and were compatible with Beidou. The company says its drone hardware localization rate is 100 percent. Automation was initially driven by overseas labor costs. Early shows required one pilot per 100 drones to position and adjust them. Customers in Australia and the United States said labor cost more than the drones. That led to the 2022 V3 box takeoff and landing system, which the industry widely followed. The V4 intelligent vehicle-mounted performance system allows one-button cabin opening, debugging, takeoff and recovery in about 60 seconds, compared with a traditional model requiring five people and three hours. A Shandong scenic area now has one person operating 500 drones, according to the report. Another key product released this year is an AI script editor. Users without design skills can input text instructions such as 500 drones, happy birthday, a pattern, and generate within 25 minutes a flight script for up to 1,000 drones that can be executed directly by the ground station. Professional teams previously needed about a week. AI lowers the programming and design threshold and improves efficiency, which Damoda sees as key to moving from business clients to consumers. The company says the consumer model is being rolled out.

Damoda also disclosed for the first time a second curve: low-altitude swarm embodied intelligence. Based on its mature swarm control platform and more than 66 million flights of data, it is developing a new drone swarm system for confined, narrow and dangerous areas where GPS signals are weak or absent. Unlike current products that fly preset routes in open spaces, the second product line is designed for GPS-denied and low-light enclosed spaces. Through multi-sensor fusion positioning and autonomous navigation, drones can build a map and then autonomously avoid obstacles and make decisions in complex environments. The core remains the swarm. A single drone can work independently, while multiple drones can divide tasks and continue operations. Single-drone flight control and swarm control systems can be transferred and reused, with new work focused on confined-space navigation and autonomous obstacle avoidance. Damoda said the second product line is not starting from zero, pointing to a decade of single-drone and swarm technology and 66 million flights of data. A demo is expected between the end of this year and early next year. The effort is part of Damoda's brand upgrade to an industry-level solution provider for low-altitude swarm embodied intelligence, moving from shows that look better to swarms that fly smarter. The direction intersects with two hot fields, the low-altitude economy and embodied intelligence. The company said it is open to more players, arguing that their entry shows the market is large enough and that Damoda has a first-mover advantage in swarms and can be more flexible with customized niche approaches.

On capital markets, Damoda has given a clear timetable. It has completed shareholding reform and plans to handle industrial and commercial registration changes soon. It completed multiple financing rounds this year, with valuation up nearly 10 times from its Series A, and attracted investment from several leading institutions with central state-owned enterprise backgrounds. It will push a financing round at the end of the year and expects to file for an IPO next year. Citing QY Research, Damoda says its global drone performance swarm market share is about 36 percent, ranking first. Institutions estimate the global market at several tens of billions of yuan, with double-digit compound growth expected over the next five years. If its application is accepted, Damoda would become one of the few IPO candidates in the low-altitude swarm and swarm embodied intelligence sectors. With regulators tightening policies, safety and operation records are becoming the deepest moat for leading companies. Damoda says it has completed more than 30,000 performances with no public safety accidents and has published safety standards for drone formation flight performances. The threshold for regular, large-scale operations is rising, according to the company.

Ten years ago, Damoda used 80 drones in Yudu, Jiangxi, for China's first domestic formation performance, Red Star Over China. At the time, the team discussed whether drone swarms could make money. A decade later, the performance business is established, equipment and overseas sales support revenue, and embodied intelligence and an IPO plan point to the next decade. Whether the swarms that are meant to go to work can open a new industrial space will depend on the demo expected next year and the company's later capital market progress.

Editor's Summary

Damoda, a Chinese drone formation display company, is broadening from light shows into equipment sales, overseas markets and low-altitude swarm embodied intelligence as it prepares for an IPO in 2027. Its Chongqing and overseas projects show how performance operations can support equipment demand and local tourism revenue, while its second product line and financing plans will shape its next phase.