Lilium GmbH

Lilium GmbH is a german Aerospace company. Lilium is the developer of the Lilium Jet, an electrically powered personal air vehicle capable of VTOL flight.

Lilium GmbH
TypePrivately held company
IndustryAerospace
Founded2015
FounderSebastian Born, Matthias Meiner, Patrick Nathen, Daniel Wiegand
Headquarters
Weßling, Bavaria
,
Germany
Key people
Daniel Wiegand, Remo Gerber, Patrick Nathen, Sebastian Born, Dirk Gebser, Oliver Walker-Jones, Anja Maassen van den Brink, Yves Yemsi, Peter Seidel, Geoffrey Richardson, Lauren Zweirlein, Alastair McIntosh, Arnd Mueller, Dominique Decard
ProductsVTOL aircraft
Number of employees
600
Websitewww.lilium.com

History

Lilium GmbH was founded in 2015 by four engineers and PhD students at the Technical University of Munich, Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, Matthias Meiner and Patrick Nathen.[1] They are supported by the Business Incubation Center Bavaria, the European Space Agency (ESA), Chinese Internet company Tencent, Atomico, Obvious, LGT and Frank Thelen's investment company Freigeist Capital.[2]

The Lilium Eagle, an unmanned two-seat proof of concept model, performed its maiden flight at the airfield Mindelheim-Mattsies near Munich in Germany on 20 April 2017.[3] The Lilium Jet five-seater prototype Phoenix first flew in May 2019.[4][5] The prototype was powered by 36 electrically-powered jacketed-propellers mounted in movable flaps that can point down for vertical takeoff and gradually moved to a horizontal position to provide forward thrust.[6] The five-seat Lilium Jet is capable of achieving a top speed of 300km/h and targets a range of 300 km.[7] In 2017, Lilium announced plans to launch a 5-seat Lilium Jet by 2025, aimed for the air taxi service market.[8] At the beginning of 2019, Lilium held discussions with the Switzerland's national rail company SBB on the use of the air taxi as a means of transport between the station and at home and a letter of intent was signed.[9] In October 2019, Lilium released footage showing the Jet in full flight, taking off vertically and transitioning to horizontal flight.[10] Lilium also announced the completion of its first manufacturing facility in October 2019.[11] In November 2020, Lilium announced a partnership with the developer Tavistock Development Company to build a $25 million “vertiport” in Orlando, Florida.[12]

As of 2018, the registered office of Lilium GmbH was in Weßling (Wessling) near Gilching[13][14] in Bavaria, Germany. Lilium raised a new finance round of $90 million in September 2017.[15] In May 2018, the car designer Frank Stephenson[16] became chief designer for Lilium. He previously worked for BMW and designed various sports car brands. Also in 2018, Arnd Mueller,[17] previously Chief Brand Marketing Officer & GM Esprit Image GmbH-Member of the Executive Management Team, became VP Marketing of Lilium. He is to build the air taxi development company and its product into an international brand. In September 2018, Yann de Vries, formerly partner at Atomico, became the new VP of corporate development Lilium.[18] In January 2021, Lilium announced that Thomas Enders, former CEO of Airbus, will join the board.[19]

In July 2019, Lilium announced London, UK as its base to develop its software engineering team.[20] The engineering team is led by Carlos Morgado, former chief technology officer of Just Eat. Luca Benassi, a former Airbus executive with experience at Boeing and NASA, has been named Lilium’s chief development engineer.[21] Yves Yemsi who worked as head of program quality for Airbus A350 aircraft has been hired as chief program officer.[22] Dirk Gebser has joined as vice president of production.[23]

In March 2020, Lilium raised $240 million in funding led by Tencent, with participation of previous backers such as Atomico, Freigeist and LGT.[24]

In January 2021 it was reported that Lilium was seeking to become a listed company via the SPAC process.[25] The company also confirmed it was redesigning its aircraft.[26]

Controversy

In January 2020 Aerokurier published a controversial report into Lilium, which stated that the company could not meet its stated aircraft performance goals and would only be able to fly for two minutes at a time.[27] The anonymously-authored report was dismissed by the company but later backed up by four well-known German aerospace academics who wrote that Lilium was "using brilliant PR to create an illusory world to attract investors."[28][29]

Awards and recognition

In 2018, Lilium was named as the management team of the year - industrial goods as the silver Stevie winner of the Stevie Awards.[30]

In July 2019, the Lilium five-seater Jet received a Red Dot Award: Design Concept for "Best of the Best".[31]

In 2019, Lilium was named second in LinkedIn Germany's 'Top Startups' list.[32]

References
  1. Palmer, Maija (14 March 2019). "Lilium hopes to soar with launch of electric air taxis". Financial Times. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  2. "Lilium Aviation". crunchbase. 6 August 2018. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  3. "Lilium Jet "Eagle" Prototype (Defunct)". Electric VTOL News™. 21 October 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  4. "Lilium unveils five-seater air taxi prototype after a successful maiden flight for its latest jet". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  5. "Five seater self-flying air taxi unveiled". 16 May 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  6. Ulrike Ebner (21 April 2017). "Lilium Jet absolviert unbemannten Erstflug (Lilium Jet completes unmanned first flight)". flugrevue. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  7. "The Week In Technology, Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 2019 | Aviation Week Network". aviationweek.com. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  8. BBC (20 April 2017). "Jet-propelled sky taxi tested in Germany". BBC. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  9. Andy Hoffman (13 January 2019). "Swiss Rail Service Planning Electric Flying Taxis: Report". Bloomberg. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  10. "Lilium releases new flight footage and details factory plans for 2025 launch". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  11. Rudgard, Olivia (22 October 2019). "The electric air taxi that could take you from London to Manchester in an hour starting in 2025". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  12. Hawkins, Andrew J. (11 November 2020). "Flying taxi startup Lilium will build a hub for its electric aircraft in Florida". The Verge. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  13. Lilium (6 August 2018). "Imprint". lilium. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  14. crunchbase (6 August 2018). "Lilium Aviation". crunchbase. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  15. Jonas Jansen (5 September 2017). "Für ihr Flugauto bekommen diese deutschen Erfinder 90 Millionen Dollar (For their flight car these German inventors get 90 million dollars)". FAZ. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  16. Anthony Cuthbertson (25 April 2018). "Famous car designer swaps Ferrari for flying taxis because 'there's too much traffic'". independent. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  17. Giuseppe Rondinella (12 June 2018). "Münchner Lufftaxi-Start-up holt ersten Marketingchef an Bord". horizont.net. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  18. Steve O'Hear (18 September 2018). "Atomico's Yann de Vries joins flying taxi company Lilium as VP Corporate Development". techcrunch. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
  19. says, True aviation lover. "Lilium recruits former Airbus CEO Tom Enders for board of directors". evtol.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  20. Field, Matthew (11 June 2019). "Boost for UK tech as German flying taxi startup creates 'hundreds' of new London software jobs". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  21. "Lilium, the ambitious German air taxi company, picks London for its new software engineering base". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  22. Hawkins, Andrew J. (22 October 2019). "Lilium's electric air taxi is finally actually flying in new video". The Verge. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  23. Bhuiyan, Johana (21 August 2017). "Flying-car company Lilium has hired ex-Gett and Airbus execs to help make its on-demand air taxis a reality by 2025". Vox. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  24. "Lilium raises another $240M to design, test and run an electric aircraft taxi service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  25. "Lilium reportedly seeking public investment via SPAC in high-stakes test for electric air taxi-makers". evtol.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  26. Köhn, Rüdiger; München. "E-Flugzeuge: Der ICE der Lüfte". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  27. Reinhold, Lars (23 January 2020). "Lilium: Weitere Experten unterstützen Kritik". www.aerokurier.de (in German). Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  28. Reinhold, Lars (23 January 2020). "Lilium: Weitere Experten unterstützen Kritik". www.aerokurier.de (in German). Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  29. "Lilium reportedly seeking public investment via SPAC in high-stakes test for electric air taxi-makers". evtol.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  30. "Gewinner der German Stevie® Awards 2018 | Stevie Awards". stevieawards.com (in German). Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  31. "Lilium jet awarded prestigious 'Best of the Best' Red Dot design award". Robotics & Automation News. 30 July 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  32. "Lilium comes second in 'LinkedIn Top Startups of 2019' - Lilium". lilium.com. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
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