VoltAero completes first funding in its Series B Round from strategic industrial investor, TESI

France-based, VoltAero, who describes its Cas­sio 330 as “A unique air­craft with par­al­lel elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion” recent­ly announced com­ple­tion of the first tranche in a Series B finance round, with TESI, an Ital­ian engi­neer­ing firm based in Turin, becom­ing a strate­gic investor and indus­tri­al part­ner, reports a press release. The new fund­ing that includes a EUR32 mil­lion cap­i­tal raise, will cov­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­duc­tion launch of the Cas­sio.

Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and CTO, com­ment­ed, “TESI’s deci­sion to become both a strate­gic investor and an indus­tri­al part­ner is a sign of VoltAero’s tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness mod­el cred­i­bil­i­ty.” The Series B round marks the third fund­ing phase for VoltAero which entered the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process with Europe’s EASA in Octo­ber 2021.

Jean Bot­ti

TESI will pro­duce the air­frame for VoltAero’s No.1 Cas­sio 330 pro­to­type, which is tar­get­ed to make its maid­en flight in 2023. The Cas­sio is a five-seat ver­sion, with a com­bined elec­tric-hybrid propul­sive pow­er of 330 kilo­watts.

Lui­gi Pun­zo, TESI CEO, said, “We have been impressed by VoltAero’s high­ly intel­li­gent approach with Cas­sio, apply­ing its dual-source elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion con­cept for region­al avi­a­tion that will be both sus­tain­able and oper­a­tional­ly safe.”

The Cas­sio air­frame design is based on an aero­dy­nam­i­cal­ly-opti­mised fuse­lage, a for­ward fixed canard, and an aft-set wing with twin booms that sup­port a high-set hor­i­zon­tal tail.

The release explains, “By inte­grat­ing VoltAero’s pro­pri­etary elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem into the company’s pur­pose-designed air­frame, the Cas­sio air­craft fam­i­ly will deliv­er an order of mag­ni­tude bet­ter per­for­mance as com­pared to the cur­rent com­pe­ti­tion, and pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant low­er oper­a­tional costs.”

It goes on, “TESI is to con­struct the Cas­sio pro­to­type air­frame at its Cicerale facil­i­ty in the Cam­pa­nia region of south­west­ern Italy. The com­pa­ny spe­cialis­es in the pro­duc­tion and inte­gra­tion of metal­lic struc­tures and assem­blies, as well as mechan­i­cal parts with in-house capa­bil­i­ties from machin­ing and form­ing to assem­bly, backed by resources for heat and sur­face treat­ment.”

The VoltAero propul­sion con­cept is con­sid­ered unique. The release con­tin­ues, “The Cas­sio will utilise elec­tric motors in the aft fuse­lage-mount­ed propul­sion sys­tem for all-elec­tric pow­er dur­ing taxi, take­off, pri­ma­ry flight, and land­ing.

The hybrid fea­ture (with an inter­nal com­bus­tion engine) comes into play as a range exten­der, recharg­ing the bat­ter­ies while in flight. Addi­tion­al­ly, this hybrid ele­ment serves as a back­up in the event of a prob­lem with the elec­tric propul­sion, ensur­ing true fail-safe func­tion­al­i­ty.”

Since 2020, VoltAero’s elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem has under­gone exten­sive air­borne eval­u­a­tions with the full-pow­er 600-kilo­watt ver­sion installed on the company’s Cas­sio 1 demon­stra­tor air­plane, mak­ing it the world’s first par­al­lel elec­tric-hybrid pow­er­train to fly.

So far, Cas­sio 1 has logged some 10,000 kilo­me­tres and 135 flight hours with this par­tic­u­lar propul­sion sys­tem in tri­als across France and UK. The aim is to con­struct three ver­sions of the air­craft. The fam­i­ly group will pro­vide a prod­uct line for region­al com­mer­cial oper­a­tors, air taxi/charter com­pa­nies, pri­vate own­ers, as well as in util­i­ty-cat­e­go­ry ser­vice for car­go, postal deliv­ery and med­ical evac­u­a­tion (Mede­vac) appli­ca­tions.

First to be cer­ti­fied will be the Cas­sio 330, with five seats and pow­ered by the 330-kilo­watt elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem. VoltAero’s fol­low-on six-seat Cas­sio 480 will have an elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 480 kilo­watts, while the Cas­sio 600 is sized at a 12-seat capac­i­ty with elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 600 kilo­watts.

Back­ground

VoltAero is head­quar­tered at the Aéro­drome de Roy­an-Médis in south­west France, and its Cas­sio air­craft are to under­go final con­struc­tion in a facil­i­ty at Rochefort Air­port in France’s Nou­velle-Aquitaine region.

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(images: Volt Aero)