Lilium lifts $90 Million from Tencent and others
Lilium is a German company with ambitions as big as Silicon Valley. It has a dream to design a five-passenger flying taxi and has lifted a 2nd round of funding worth $90 Million from leading tech sponsors, making it one of the finest-financed electric aircraft projects till date.
The firm has come up as one of hottest start-ups in Europe since it seeks to make a new segment of aircraft capable of both electric powered jet flight and vertical take-off. This week, Lilium claimed that the new financing, headed by Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant, also comprises the Obvious Ventures; largest family-owned investment company in Europe, Liechtenstein-based LGT; and European business company Atomico.
Along the stuff of futuristic and science fiction cartoons such as “The Jetsons,” technology and aviation leaders are now busy to design new kinds of flying electric-powered vehicles, named as “flying cars.” These players comprise Uber, Airbus, and a series of start-ups involving one supported by Larry Page, the Google co-founder, named Kitty Hawk.
Last month, Lilium claimed that it was designing a five-passenger “flying taxi” after escalating successful trial flights of a two-seat, full-size jet capable of a mid-air changeover from hover mode, such as drones, to wing-bear flight, such as traditional aircraft. Electric-powered, wing-bear flight permits commuter aircraft to take a trip of 5 or 6x the distance of aircraft, a Lilium spokesperson claimed. A trip of 20 km to JFK Airport from Manhattan might take as less as 5 Minutes, he guessed.
“The idea goes far more than what you classically view from German companies,” claimed the previous European Managing Director of online taxi firm Gett, Remo Gerber, to the media in an interview. He was named as Chief Commercial Officer of Lilium last month. Lilium claimed that it aims to use the new capital to extend employment and carry it throughout the next stages of development for its five-passenger electric jet, getting it time to meet strict regulatory norms.
The 70-worker firm has approximately as many exceptional job postings as present staff, and aims to swiftly scale up employing of physicists, aeronautical engineers, electric propulsion experts and computer science, Gerber claimed to the media. Lilium, which was established in 2015 by the 4 graduates of Technical University of Munich, is aiming for a manned trail flight of its five-passenger aircraft till 2019. It is also aiming to roll out commuter services of “flying taxi” sometime in the upcoming decade.