UPDATED 21:40 EDT / SEPTEMBER 09 2019

EMERGING TECH

Flying taxi startup Volocopter raises $55M from Volvo owner Geely

German flying taxi startup Volocopter GmbH said today it has raised €50 million ($55.1 million) in new funding to assist it to bring its aircraft to commercial launch in the next three years.

The Series C round was led by Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd. and included Daimler AG. Geely is best known in the West as being the owner of Volvo and Lotus, while Daimler owns Mercedes-Benz.

Founded in 2011, Volocopter is developing and building electric air taxis and what it describes as an “ecosystem surrounding urban air mobility.” “Urban” is key to the company’s pitch because of issues with electric air transport, since limitations in battery technology limit range.

Looking like a giant drone with seating for two people, the prototype Pre-Series 2X model was introduced in Dubai in 2017. In August, the company announced a newer prototype called VoloCity with a longer range — 22 miles versus 17 miles with the previous model — and an airspeed of 68 miles per hour. The company is pitching VoloCity as its first commercial aircraft, though it’s still three years away from commercial availability.

“Urban mobility needs to evolve in the next few years to meet rising demand,” Florian Reuter, chief executive officer of Volocopter, said in a statement. “With our Volocopter air taxis, we are adding a whole new level of mobility in the skies. This funding round is allowing us to take great strides towards bringing Urban Air Mobility to life.”

Geely’s lead in the round is not a simple investment, with both companies entering a joint venture to bring Volocopter’s technology to the Chinese market. Whether that means Geely will be manufacturing Volocopters in China is not clear, but given mainland China foreign company access rules, it will most certainly involve Volocopter handing over access to its technology.

Flying taxis, though more difficult to deliver, have in some ways reflected the autonomous vehicle market: full of promise but short on delivery. One of the players in flying taxi development is Uber Technologies Inc., which signed a collaboration deal with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2017.

Image: Volocopter

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU