Lilium, a Flying Car Start-up, Raises $90 Million
Lilium, a Flying Car Start-up, Raises $90 Million
By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED SEPT. 5, 2017
LONDON — As interest in flying cars continues to swell,
one of the most prominent start-ups working on the technology has gained a big
new backer.
Lilium Aviation, a German company that held a successful
test flight of the Eagle, its two-seat electric jet, at its Munich base this
year, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $90 million in a new round of
financing.
The investment was led by Tencent Holdings, the Chinese
internet giant. Other investors in the round included LGT, the investment
vehicle of Lichtenstein’s royal family; Atomico, the venture firm run by a
founder of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom; and Obvious Ventures, the investment firm
co-founded by the Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Mr. Zennstrom has
previously invested in the company.
Lilium is among several companies looking to usher in an
era of Jetsons-type flying cars, including those backed by the Google
co-founder Larry Page, Uber and Airbus. But the two-year-old company is trying
to stand out by focusing on an electric jet — unlike other models that
effectively function more like hovercraft.
The design, by the four graduates of the Technical
University of Munich who founded Lilium, is meant to be more energy efficient
than competitors’ models. As the start-up demonstrated with its Eagle in April,
Lilium’s vehicle is designed to take off and land vertically, like a
helicopter.
Lilium is also working on a bigger, five-seat version of
what it calls an “air taxi” that could ferry passengers or cargo as far as 300
kilometers, or 186 miles, and reach a maximum speed of 300 kilometers an hour.
“We have highly congested cities where we can do things
to improve matters,” Remo Gerber, Lilium’s chief commercial officer, said. He
and his colleagues envision a fleet of air taxis zipping across crowded cities,
once the vehicles are created and approved by the various regulators, of
course.
“We’re trying to move from a niche transport vehicle to a
mass-transport one,” he added.
That has obvious appeal to Tencent: Its e-commerce empire
could benefit from making such air transport a reality.
“From underdeveloped regions with poor road infrastructure,
to the developed world with traffic congestion and sprawl, new possibilities
emerge when convenient daily flight becomes an option for all of us,” David
Wallerstein, Tencent’s chief exploration officer, said in a statement.
The cash infusion from Tencent and other investors will
help accelerate that work, and allow Lilium to expand beyond its team of
roughly 70 employees, Mr. Gerber said.
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