Flying air taxis from Germany are ready to “conquer the world,” Volocopter announced on Tuesday, thanks to 25 million Euros invested by Daimler and a handful of others. “Using this fresh capital, Volocopter will further expand upon the leading technology in its purely electrically driven VTOLs, speed up the introduction process of the Volocopter serial model, and conquer the market for flying air taxis,” the company said. Florian Reuter, managing director of Volocopter, added: “The strong financial commitment of our new investors is a signal as well as proof of the growing confidence in the newly emerging market for electrically driven VTOLs put to use as personal air taxis. We deliberately sought a mix of investors with strategic and entrepreneurial backgrounds and were able to implement this perfectly.”
Together with its partners, Volocopter said it will use the new funding to develop the Volocopter up to production maturity and secure commercial licensing through aviation authorities worldwide. The engineering staff will be expanded, adding specialists in the development of flight systems, software and electric propulsion. Funds also will be invested in marketing and promotion, including the development of a new website, which launched on Tuesday. Volocopter said that by the end of this year, it will conduct initial demonstrations of an autonomous air taxi, in partnership with the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai. The first fully certified Volocopter should be on the market next year.
