Wingcopter receives $42 million

Demand for Wingcopter's drones has exploded. The start-up wants to use the capital from the financing round to increase production capacity.

Wingcopter has expanded its Series A by another $42 million. New investors include Rewe Group, Salvia, Xai Technologies and Itochu. In addition, existing investors Itochu, Futury Capital and Xplorer Capital participated. The funding round has brought the startup's total valuation to $60 million.

Just recently, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified Wingcopter's Drone 198 as airworthy - the funding round also came about as part of the certification. "The new funding, combined with growing revenues, puts us in an excellent position to establish our industry-leading drone delivery solution with our customers around the globe and optimize supply chains," said Wingcopter co-founder and CEO Tom Plümmer.

With the fresh capital, Wingcopter plans to expand its drone delivery services globally and increase production capacity. According to the company, these have been exhausted for the next two years due to high demand - even though they can produce thousands of drones a year at their Weiterstadt site. The start-up is also looking to hire 80 new employees across all departments in the coming months and expand its research into new product features.