Lilium gathers $119 million for air-taxi business
The German electric air-taxi start-up Lilium has closed a financing round of 119 million US dollars. Participants in the investment round included existing shareholders, strategic partners, and new investors.
Lilium investors include Honeywell, Aciturri, LGT, Lightrock, Tencent, and B. Riley Securities. Lilium’s CEO Klaus Roewe, who has been in his post since August also invested in the round along with three other board members, Barry Engle, David Wallerstein and Niklas Zennström.
Lilium intends to use the funds for the further financing of its business activities and the development of the Lilium Jet. Lilium also counts paying suppliers among its “general corporate purposes”.
“We are pleased to have such a high-quality group of supporters in a challenging macro environment,” said CEO Klaus Roewe. “These proceeds are expected to strengthen our balance sheet and advance our commercialization efforts including signing of customer agreements with pre-delivery payments, reaching an agreement with EASA on our Means of Compliance, and commencing assembly of the type-conforming aircraft for the final manned flight test campaign.”
The Lilium Jet, which should provide high-speed regional aerial transportation with the all-electric 7-Seater, is expected to have an operational range of around 175 kilometres (108 miles), assuming a short 10-second vertical take-off at its maximum take-off weight and a brief 45-second vertical landing. Lilium aims for regional transport routes with passengers and/or cargo within 300 kilometres. By 2025, for example, the company wants to connect Orlando with Miami in the south and Jacksonville in the north of Florida.
Just last month, Lilium signed a preliminary agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Saudia airline to deliver 100 examples of its Lilium Jet with the plan of building an eVTOL network operated by Saudia throughout Saudi Arabia. It is unclear when the first units will be delivered to Saudi Arabia if an agreement is reached. This April, Lilium postponed the market launch from 2024 to 2025.
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