Lilium — Uber of the skies “made in Germany”
Manned and unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is destined to turn the transportation and logistics system on its head in the coming decades. The first step in this direction were remote-controlled drones, in no small measure due to the Chinese manufacturer DJI. In the foreseeable future, these high flyers will even transport people in small cockpits “made in Germany”. Already leading the trend are Volocopter from Bruchsal and Lilium Aviation from Gilching, near Munich.
According to its inventors, Lilium is the world’s first vertical take-off emission-free jet, which operates with an electric drive. The aircraft completed its first unmanned test flight in April 2017 after two years of development. The startup has remarkably bold plans (especially by German standards): If successful, the company’s jets could replace cars and taxis in the medium-term, above all in metropolitan areas such as New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The company’s ambitions have been spurred on by macro trends such as rapidly increasing urbanization, as well as technological leaps in battery capacity and autonomous vehicles. The founders plans therefore include tackling big-city congestion as well as air pollution or even housing shortage. At some point, commuters will be able to take off conveniently from the suburbs and land in front of their offices, without traffic jams and detours. Like Uber, Lyft, and MyTaxi, the entire service would be on-demand.
The German startup has a long-term technological vision. Although currently still in the experimental stage, Lilium aims to diversify its position to appeal to a billion-dollar market - from offering technology to providing mobility services. To this end, the team is able to draw on considerable expertise: CEO and founder Daniel Wiegang studied aerospace technology at TU Munich, and his partners Sebastian Born and Patrick Nathen are also engineers with specializations in materials management and aerodynamics. There are plans to greatly expand the team with further industry knowhow after the latest financing round. At present, over 65 positions have been advertised.
In late 2016, the company acquired a first round of venture capital amounting to USD 11.4 million. The largest investment came from Atomico, the VC fund of Skype founder Niklas Zennström - a particularly auspicious milestone for the German team. In September 2017, a significant round of USD 90 million followed, led by the renowned Chinese tech giant Tencent (WeChat). Lilium was now on the map for good.
The anticipated range of the Lilium jet is 300 kilometres at a maximum speed of 300 kilometres per hour. The London to Paris route could thus be covered in an hour - no less from one’s own back yard. Science fiction? At the moment, perhaps. Nonetheless, Lilium is one of the few companies expected to cause a stir, financially as well as technologically.
The project’s time-to-market is still uncertain. But like the Hyperloop transport system, this daring project deserves to be watched closely, not least because at least ten other companies are working on similar solutions around the globe - including Vahana (Airbus), Joby (JetBlue, Toyota), and Elevate (Uber).
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