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Volo­copter has announced that Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion has invest­ed in its Series E Fund­ing round, and will also become a key strate­gic part­ner for entry into ser­vice in the Japan­ese mar­ket start­ing in 2025.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) has accept­ed Volo­copter’s appli­ca­tion for con­cur­rent type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (TC) of the VoloC­i­ty air­craft in Japan. To cel­e­brate these mile­stones, Volo­copter will show­case a full-scale VoloC­i­ty sta­t­ic mod­el for the first time at the Grand Front Osa­ka from 8 to 12 March, to raise region­al pub­lic aware­ness and accep­tance of elec­tric air taxis.

The Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty (EASA) and JCAB have accept­ed Volocopter’s appli­ca­tion process for con­cur­rent TC of the ful­ly elec­tric VoloC­i­ty air­craft to fly com­mer­cial­ly in Japan. Volo­copter is on tar­get to achieve cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the VoloC­i­ty from EASA in 2024.

As of now, the com­pa­ny is pur­su­ing con­cur­rent val­i­da­tion with three non-Euro­pean civ­il avi­a­tion author­i­ties: JCAB in Japan, Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) in the Unit­ed States, and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Sin­ga­pore (CAAS) in Sin­ga­pore.

Chris­t­ian Bauer, Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer of Volo­copter, said: “Com­mit­ting to fly and enter a mar­ket is no small feat, but for Volo­copter and Japan, who are both pio­neers in the UAM space, it just makes sense.

“Over the past few years, Volo­copter has made sig­nif­i­cant progress toward becom­ing an inte­gral part of the team that will bring UAM to life in Japan in 2025, thanks to part­ners like Sum­it­o­mo, EASA, and JCAB who share our vision. I can­not wait to see the pub­lic reac­tion to the VoloC­i­ty air taxi being unveiled in Osa­ka for the first time.”

Patrick Ky, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of EASA, said: “EASA is proud to be part­ner­ing with Japan’s Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT) and share with JCAB its expe­ri­ence with its SC-VTOL reg­u­la­tions in the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process of VoloC­i­ty.”

Volo­copter is show­cas­ing its VoloC­i­ty full-scale sta­t­ic mod­el for the first time from 8 to 12 March. The show­case event will take place at the Grand Front Osa­ka, a shop­ping mall with high foot­fall and ide­al­ly locat­ed adja­cent to the Osa­ka Ume­da sta­tion, which sees 2.3 mil­lion pas­sen­gers pass­ing through every day.