German electric air taxi company Volocopter has filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest in a string of similar businesses to hit financial turbulence. The company plans to continue operating while it seeks new investors.
“We are ahead of our industry peers in our technological advancement, flight testing and certification. This makes us an attractive company to invest in while we organize ourselves with internal restructuring,” CEO Dirk Hoke said in a statement.
Volocopter’s decision comes after it spent months on the brink of collapse. It also comes just a week after German electric vertical lift and landing company Lilium went out of business – only to be apparently rescued by a consortium of investors just a day later. (This deal is set to close in January.)
Volocopter is one of the best-funded air taxi startups, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars over nearly a decade with backing from major automakers like Germany’s Mercedes-Benz and China’s Geely.
