Lilium launches on the stock exchange

The air cab manufacturer makes its debut on the US Nasdaq on Wednesday.

It is the event in an otherwise news-poor week in the start-up world: the German air taxi manufacturer Lilium is launching on the New York technology exchange Nasdaq. The German company has merged with the Spac called Qell. This Spac is an empty shell that is listed on the stock exchange and pumped full of shareholder money, which flows to Lilium as a result of the merger. In return, the company will be listed on the stock exchange. This has been the case since 9:30 a.m. German time on Wednesday.

The German start-up actually wanted to raise around 834 million US dollars, but according to Handelsblatt research,it has to reckon with around 300 million euros less. The reason for this is that some Spac investors returned their shares before the takeover. They prefer not to invest their money in air cabs. With Spacs, such withdrawals are quite common, with a majority of 70 to 90 percent of investors usually exiting at this point, according to a Citibank report. In the case of Lilium, the figure is only 65 percent.

The company wants to use the money to push ahead with the production of its air cabs, in which Frank Thelen, a well-known investor in Germany, also believes. The Munich-based company plans to launch its first model on the market as early as 2024; by 2026, a single jet is expected to generate annual sales of five million US dollars, and the company is targeting sales of 5.9 billion US dollars by 2027.