Lilium raises nearly 114 million euros

The Munich-based flight cab start-up plans to begin production of its high-flyers next year.

Munich-based flight cab start-up Lilium raised €113.7 million. The capital increase included Honeywell, Aciturri, impact investor Lightrock, Liechtenstein private bank LGT and B. Riley Securities among the backers. Three board members, Batty Engle, David Wallerstein and Niklas Zennström, and new CEO Klaus Roewe also participated.

"We expect these proceeds to strengthen our balance sheet and drive our commercialization efforts," Roewe says. "Including signing customer contracts with upfront payments and starting assembly of the type-compliant aircraft for the final manned flight test campaign."

Founded in 2015 out of the Technical University of Munich, the company is developing vertical takeoff jets, with production set to begin next year. Per Spac, the company went public on the U.S. Nasdaq technology exchange last year. As a result, Lilium secured about 496 million euros. Initial declarations of intent to buy the jets have already been made. Saudi Arabia's national airline wants to buy 100 Lilium jets, ASL Group wants six jets for the Benelux countries and Helity Copter Airlines wants five jets in Andalusia. Twelve jets are also to be deployed in southern France and Italy, where Globeair has a letter of intent.