Volocopter raises $170 million in first signing of its Series E Financing Round, to help with certification of its eVTOL aircraft

Volo­copter has raised $170 mil­lion in the ini­tial sign­ing of its Series E financ­ing round, led by South Kore­an investor WP Invest­ment at a pre-mon­ey val­u­a­tion of $1.7 bil­lion.

Com­posed of funds from new and exist­ing investors, the mon­ey raised will assist with the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Volocopter’s eVTOL air taxi and is expect­ed to help achieve com­mer­cial launch in first cities world­wide. 

WP Invest­ment, which is a new investor in this fund­ing round, will also part­ner with Volo­copter and cre­ate a joint ven­ture that will bring urban air mobil­i­ty to South Korea’s cities.  

Flo­ri­an Reuter, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “This fund­ing round is a tes­ta­ment to Volocopter’s lead­ing posi­tion in what is a high­ly attrac­tive emerg­ing mar­ket. We con­tin­ue to make sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial progress as we work toward bring­ing urban air mobil­i­ty to life at scale in cities world­wide.”

New investors in Volo­copter include WP Invest­ment and Hon­ey­well, amongst oth­ers. Many exist­ing investors includ­ing Atlantia, Whysol, and btov Part­ners, have also increased their invest­ment in this round.  

Elis­a­bet­ta De Bernar­di, Invest­ment Direc­tor Europe for Atlantia, said: “We decid­ed to strength­en our invest­ment in Volo­copter because we strong­ly believe in its abil­i­ty to rapid­ly bring to life this inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty. We will con­tin­ue to pro­mote urban air mobil­i­ty, a fast-grow­ing busi­ness that can help reduce emis­sions and traf­fic in large cities.” 

Dr. Lei Wang, Chair­man of WP Invest­ment. Co-Chair­man Tiffany Park, added: “We are con­fi­dent that Volo­copter will be among the first to bring UAM to cities glob­al­ly, since see­ing its air­craft fly in Seoul last year. As a leader in ESG invest­ment, we are excit­ed to empow­er city sus­tain­abil­i­ty through Volo­copter.

“We are excit­ed to kick off our joint ven­ture and be the first to estab­lish sus­tain­able eVTOL logis­tics and air taxi ser­vices with Volo­copter in Korea.” 

Volo­copter is devel­op­ing new and sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty options for cities around the world. With its fam­i­ly of air­craft — the VoloC­i­ty, Volo­Con­nect, and Volo­Drone — the com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing urban air mobil­i­ty as a holis­tic ecosys­tem.

With a decade of devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence, Volo­copter is cur­rent­ly the first and only eVTOL air­craft com­pa­ny to receive Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA) from EASA. The com­pa­ny has already com­mit­ted to launch­ing com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices in cities such as Sin­ga­pore, Rome and Paris. 

Ste­fan Klocke, Chair­man of Volo­copter’s Advi­so­ry Board, said: “Our suc­cess­ful first sign­ing of Series E brings phe­nom­e­nal new investors on board, with fur­ther in the due dili­gence stage. This pri­vate fund­ing round allows us to stay focused on our mis­sion to bring sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty to life.

“We have nev­er been in a stronger posi­tion: we are finan­cial­ly diver­si­fied, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the air­craft is with­in reach, and we are demon­strat­ing our advanced capa­bil­i­ties by pub­lic flights and strong joint-ven­tures across the world.” 

Volo­copter recent­ly announced that it has entered a financ­ing agree­ment in prin­ci­ple with Avi­a­tion Cap­i­tal Group (ACG) for the sale and leas­ing of Volo­copter air­craft for up to USD 1 bil­lion. Once air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has been achieved, this agree­ment will allow Volo­copter to offer its oper­at­ing enti­ties and cus­tomers world­wide attrac­tive leas­ing options.