Lilium secures additional funding worth more than $240 million for air taxi prototype

Avi­a­tion start-up Lil­i­um has com­plet­ed an inter­nal fund­ing round worth more than $240 mil­lion, to help con­tin­ue the devel­op­ment of its all-elec­tric air­craft for use as a fly­ing taxi ser­vice.

Led by Ten­cent, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from oth­er ven­dors such as Atom­i­co, Freigeist and LGT, this lat­est announce­ment brings the total amount to $340 mil­lion.

Lil­i­um will use these funds to fur­ther sup­port the devel­op­ment of its new five-seater air-taxi pro­to­type — the Lil­i­um Jet — and begin prepa­ra­tions for ser­i­al pro­duc­tion in its new­ly-built man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties. The Munich-based com­pa­ny expects to be ful­ly oper­a­tional in cities around the world by 2025.

Christo­pher Del­brück, Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer at Lil­i­um, said: “This addi­tion­al fund­ing under­scores the deep con­fi­dence our investors have in both our phys­i­cal prod­uct and our busi­ness case. We’re very pleased to be able to com­plete an inter­nal round with them, hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed great­ly from their sup­port and guid­ance over the past few years.

“The new funds will enable us to take big strides towards our shared goal of deliv­er­ing region­al air mobil­i­ty as ear­ly as 2025.”

Lil­i­um unveiled the Lil­i­um Jet in May 2019, a brand new type of air­craft offer­ing region­al jour­neys which are con­sid­er­ably faster than rail or road. It can trav­el up to 300km in just 60 min­utes, pro­duc­ing zero emis­sions, and com­plet­ed a suc­cess­ful maid­en flight over Ger­many in the same month.

The full-scale, full-weight pro­to­type is pow­ered by 36 jet engines that allow it to take off and land ver­ti­cal­ly, and can reach a top speed of 300 km/h.