Flying cars on the horizon

A flying car start up that hopes to bring “urban air taxis” to market has attracted over $100 million USD worth of investment, and has just finished its second round of funding. And it’s not the only flying car manufacturer that is attracting interest. The German company, Lilium Aviation said Tuesday the investment will be used for the development of its five-seat Lilium Jet and for the development of its current team. In December 2016, the company said it had completed a Series A funding round worth more than $10.7 million. A US company, XTI Aircraft Company has resumed its equity crowdfunding campaign for its TriFan 600, having secured $20 million USD from New York investment bank Primary Capital last September. In April at Uber’s Elevate Summit, finance executives announced their intention to increase investment in vertical landing and take-off technologies, with one financier announcing they would create a new company specifically to fund the technologies. Lilium’s two-seat Eagle Lilium Jet prototype took its maiden flight in April. The company’s CEO Robert LaBelle said XTI plans to have a one-third mockup of its six-seat TriFan 600 ready by October. “We’re expecting to book orders and make announcements,” he said. Lilium said its Series B funding group consists of Tencent; LGT, the international private banking and asset management group; Atomico, a Series A backer founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström; and Obvious Ventures, whose co-founder Ev Williams is Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO. The jet would be able to travel at about 300kph for one hour on a single charge. Google, Uber, Airbus are also among those developing flying car technologies.