Urban Air Mobility company Volocopter has raised another €200 million (£173 million) in additional capital funding to bring its overall investment to €322 million (£278 million).
It says this accelerates plans to launch the first commercial routes for its battery-powered air taxi solution for cities.
Volocopter says it is in the final stages of providing “new, sustainable mobility options for cities around the world”. It says future services range from electric autonomous air taxis flying passengers directly and safely to their destinations, to transporting goods with the company’s VoloDrone.
Volocopter has ten years of development experience in the urban air mobility space, and is the first and currently only electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) company to receive Design Organisation Approval (DOA) by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). It says it expects its first commercial air taxi routes to be opened within the next two years.
“Volocopter is ahead of the curve in the UAM industry, and we have the achievements to prove it,” says Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. “No other electric air taxi company has publicly performed as many flights in cities around the world, with full regulatory approval, as Volocopter has. Our VoloCity is the fifth generation of Volocopter aircraft and has a strong path to being the first certified electric air taxi for cities. Volocopter already has the extensive partnerships necessary to set up the UAM ecosystem for launching both our company and the industry into commercial operations. We are called the pioneers of UAM for a reason, and we plan to keep that title.”
(Picture – Paul Hutton)
