Volocopter Enters into Administration: “Is Geely Waiting in the Wings?”
On December 26th, German-based eVTOL company, Volocopter filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings with the Karlsruhe Local Court, reports a press release. It was approved the following day with Tobias Wahl from the law firm, Anchor Rechtsanwältegesellschaft, being appointed as the insolvency administrator.
According to the eVTOL company, business operations will continue during the proceedings with the aim “to develop a restructuring concept by the end of February and implement it with investors.” Wahl stated, “The company needs financing to take the final steps towards market entry.”
Meanwhile, Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volocopter, remains upbeat about the company’s future. “We are ahead of our industry peers in our technological, flight test, and certification progress. That makes us an attractive company to invest in while we organise ourselves with internal restructuring.” There are even plans to launch the VoloCity on the market this year.
Volocopter is close to obtaining type certification and launching its urban eVTOL, VoloCity. Yet, given the huge amounts of money required for this next critical stage, investors are hard to find.
The company says, “Despite recent intensive fundraising efforts, finding a viable solution to maintain regular operations outside of insolvency proceedings has not been possible.” But points out, “With one of the lowest burn rates in the industry, Volocopter has successfully operated in an extremely difficult financial environment.”

Tobias Wahl (Credit: Anchor Rechtsanwältegesellschaft)
Enter China-based Geely, where rumours have been swirling around since late last year, of the car company’s interest in taking over the German eVTOL set-up.
In early November, media website Bloomberg reported that Geely was looking to acquire Volocopter and purchase around 85 percent of its shares. Gerhard Sturm, the founder of fan manufacturer EBM-Papst, is also allegedly said to be involved in a potential deal.
Last year was a difficult one for the eVTOL firm. The hugely disappointing failure of not being allowed to offer commercial flights over Paris during the Olympic Games, partly due to political reasons, leading to just one manned demonstration flight in a Paris suburb, using the ten-year-old predecessor model 2X instead of the current model; then followed by an abject disinterest from German government authorities to offer any financial help to one of their top cutting-edge aviation companies, was a double blow.
Volocopter is viewed, perhaps, as the leading eVTOL aircraft developer in Europe. The company has received approval to manufacture the VoloCity and built a factory in Bruschal, Germany, established a pilot training program and conducted piloted public displays of prototypes.
Founded in 2011, Volocopter is developing the VoloCity air taxi for short trips in urban areas. The multi-rotor eVTOL aircraft can carry two passengers up to 22 miles with a top speed of 68mph. 18 rotors propel the aircraft which has been designed with a low noise signature for operations in urban areas. According to the German company, it has more than 500 pre-orders for the VoloCity.

Geely HQ (Credit: Geely)
While the outcome remains bright for the company, if Geely does step in, it will be a sad day for Europe when its top eVTOL company, close to type certification and potential commercial operations, should be owned by China. What does that say about European aviation ambitions, especially after the recent financial trials and tribulations of Lilium?
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(Top image: Volocopter)
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