“Air taxis” from Munich: investor consortium buys aircraft manufacturer Lilium

Insolvent air taxi start-up

At the last moment: aircraft manufacturer Lilium was saved

The insolvent aircraft manufacturer Lilium was on the verge of collapse and 1,000 employees were laid off. But the company was probably saved at the last moment.

The insolvent electric aircraft pioneer Lilium has found an investor and wants to continue its business. As the start-up announced on Christmas Eve, the investor consortium Mobile Uplift Corporation has signed a purchase agreement for the operating assets of the Lilium subsidiaries. The approximately 1,000 employees who were laid off on Friday would be brought back, a spokesman said.

“We are very pleased to announce the signing of an investment agreement with a very experienced consortium of investors,” said CEO Klaus Roewe. “Completing the transaction in early January will allow us to resume our business.”

Over the past ten years, the company has developed an electrically powered small aircraft that takes off and lands vertically. The first manned flight was most recently planned for the beginning of 2025, the first delivery to customers for 2026. But in the home stretch, Lilium ran out of money and the company filed for bankruptcy at the end of October.

However, at the last minute before the final end, the management and the management consultancy KPMG achieved a breakthrough in the search for investors. Mobile Uplift Corporation, founded by investors from Europe and North America, signed a purchase agreement for the operating assets of the operating subsidiaries Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH.

The creditors’ committee of the holding company Lilium has approved the deal, and completion is expected at the beginning of January. It is subject to the fulfillment of “certain customary conditions precedent”.

Nothing was initially announced about the purchase price or the investors behind Mobile Uplift. Lilium has little debt, but needs several hundred million euros to continue business, the first manned flight and certification. The company expects that the agreement with Mobile Uplift will provide the subsidiaries with “sufficient funding to resume their operations.” The proceeds from the sale will not be distributed to the umbrella company.

After completion, the subsidiaries are to be restructured and the preliminary self-administration insolvency proceedings ordered by the Weilheim district court are to be ended. The company, led by former Airbus manager Roewe, has around 700 firm and pre-orders from the USA, Great Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and other countries. Customers and investors have already invested 1.5 billion euros in the company, which was listed on the US stock exchange Nasdaq until it filed for bankruptcy.

But the upcoming approval process and the establishment of production will still require large sums of money. In the first half of 2024 alone, Lilium spent almost 200 million euros. The traffic light coalition in Berlin rejected an application for a federal loan guarantee of 50 million euros.