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Volocopter extends Series C Funding after backing from logistics giant DB Schenker

Volo­copter has increased its Series C Fund­ing to €87 mil­lion, thanks to an invest­ment from glob­al logis­tics ser­vice provider DB Schenker.

This lat­est round includes new invest­ment from Mit­sui Sum­it­o­mo Insur­ance Group, MS&AD Ven­tures and TransLink Cap­i­tal, with exist­ing investor Lukasz Gad­ows­ki and btov also par­tic­i­pat­ing.

Volo­copter will use the fund­ing to hire more indus­try experts and secure cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the VoloC­i­ty, its elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air taxi designed to trans­port peo­ple, and a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion ver­sion of its Volo­Drone, to com­mer­cialise the heavy-lift car­go drone prod­uct.  

Flo­ri­an Reuter, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “The new share­hold­er struc­ture strength­ens our glob­al net­work of strate­gic and finan­cial part­ners sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Bring­ing urban air mobil­i­ty to life for pas­sen­gers and goods is a great ambi­tion and with our new part­ners we bring the exper­tise and nec­es­sary long-term funds on board to make this inno­v­a­tive form of mobil­i­ty a real­i­ty.”

As part of this lat­est invest­ment, Volo­copter has appoint­ed Yifan “Frank” Li, Vice Pres­i­dent of Geely Hold­ing Group and Jochen Thewes, CEO of DB Schenker, to its Advi­so­ry Board. 

The Ger­man urban air mobil­i­ty provider is also bring­ing on two Inde­pen­dent Advi­so­ry Board Mem­bers with exten­sive indus­try exper­tise: for­mer CEO of Daim­ler AG Dr. Dieter Zetsche, as well as the founder of CAS Soft­ware AG, Mar­tin Hub­schnei­der. 

Mr Thewes said: “We are con­vinced that the Volo­copter tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to bring trans­port logis­tics to the next dimen­sion for our cus­tomers. DB Schenker has already test­ed autonomous and elec­tri­cal vehi­cles in sev­er­al inno­va­tion projects and in actu­al oper­a­tions. 

“By inte­grat­ing the Volo­Drone into our sup­ply chain of the future, we will be able to serve our clients’ demand for fast, remote, emis­sion-neu­tral deliv­er­ies. We are thrilled to now be part of this dri­ve for inno­va­tion in a fan­tas­tic team.” 

Volo­copter has recent­ly cham­pi­oned sev­er­al pub­lic flights across the world, at Helsin­ki Air­port, in Stuttgart, Ger­many, and over Singapore’s Mari­na Bay. As the first eVTOL com­pa­ny to receive Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval by the Euro­pean Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty, Volo­copter is already pur­su­ing com­mer­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and expects the first com­mer­cial routes to be opened as ear­ly as 2024.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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