Volocopter

Volocopter develops electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for urban passenger transport and cargo delivery. The company’s multirotor designs prioritise simplicity and redundancy over speed or range, targeting short intracity hops in dense urban environments. Its primary markets are Europe and Asia, with Singapore and Dubai as early operational focus cities.

Key Products

VoloCity: A two-seat passenger air taxi with 18 rotors, designed for urban routes up to 35 kilometres at speeds of 110 km/h. The primary certification program under EASA.

VoloDrone: A heavy-lift cargo drone capable of carrying up to 200 kg, targeting logistics, agriculture, and infrastructure applications.

VoloIQ: The software platform managing fleet operations, airspace integration, and passenger booking across Volocopter’s network.

Insolvency and Change of Ownership

Volocopter filed for insolvency in December 2024, having failed to reach its target of operating during the 2024 Paris Olympics amid funding and certification delays.

In March 2025 its assets and operations were acquired by China’s Wanfeng Auto Holding Group, through its Austrian subsidiary Diamond Aircraft, in a deal reported at around $11 million. Work continues at Volocopter’s facilities in Bruchsal, Germany, but at a much reduced scale: just over 180 of roughly 500 employees were retained.

Before the insolvency the company had raised approximately €590 million from investors including Geely, BlackRock, DB Schenker and the Singapore Economic Development Board. That capital was largely written off in the insolvency; the €590 million figure describes money historically raised, not the resources available to the business today.

Why It Matters

Volocopter was among the first eVTOL companies to fly crewed public demonstrations, in Dubai in 2017 and Singapore in 2019, and its EASA certification programme for the VoloCity remains one of the more advanced in Europe. Under Wanfeng it has resumed that certification work, with type certification pushed to 2026 and the company saying it is focused on certification, production and delivery rather than the high-visibility demonstration campaigns it was once known for.

The honest read is that Volocopter is the counterexample to Lilium rather than a success story. Both German eVTOL pioneers ran out of money before certification; one was wound up and sold for parts, the other was bought as a going concern and kept flying. What that cost is control: a European air mobility programme, funded largely by European investors, is now owned by a Chinese group, and the certification timeline that caused the insolvency has not fundamentally changed — it has only been refinanced.