Enlarge image
The product
: Lilium is working on a new
seven-seater
after the test flights with a five-seater took place
Photo: Lilium
Goodwin Procter's New York offices are on 8th Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets in the middle of Manhattan. The 170-year-old "New York Times" also resides in the same building complex. So it's a good place for stories. In the firm's bright marble offices, they met on Friday at 9 a.m. local time to write a completely new story - the stock market history of the German air taxi developer Lilium.
Lilium boss
Daniel Wiegand
(36) and his donors to the Chinese Tencent group and the venture capital fund Atomico announced
in the spring that they
wanted to go to Wall Street. Namely via the Spac IPO via the investment vehicle Qell. This shell company is - as is usual with Spac deals - already listed on the stock exchange and had raised capital solely for the purpose of taking over a suitable company. After a long analysis, Qell founder
Barry Engle
(57), a former General Motors manager, decided on the German start-up. On Friday the Qell shareholders agreed to the idea - the way to the stock exchange is clear, Lilium is to be traded on the Nasdaq as early as next Wednesday under the symbol "LILM".
"We are thrilled that the Qell shareholders will accompany us on the next stage of our journey", co-founder Wiegand cheered in a statement. However, he was also met with a lot of skepticism. 65 percent of Qell shareholders would rather give their shares back than exchange them for Lilium papers. Instead of the hoped-for $ 824 million, Lilium was only able to collect $ 584 million with the Spac maneuver. This gives the company a valuation of a good $ 2.8 billion.
The skepticism reveals once again that the great euphoria surrounding the hoped-for trillion business with electric air taxis has fizzled out. Worldwide, more than 100 manufacturers are currently competing for the first working concept. Experts have recently categorized the manufacturers' lofty promises critically. "Significant profits will be possible in ten years at the earliest," said consultant
Gregor Grandl
(46) from Porsche Consulting to manager magazin.
High exchange rates have recently not been uncommon for Spac IPOs. Investors expressed their doubts about the often hyped companies that use this route to go public. In the case of Lilium's competitor Joby, for example, whose vertical take-off air taxi is already more developed than Lilium's, 62 percent of the shell company shareholders also made use of their exchange rights in mid-August.
The fact that Lilium boss Wiegand and his CFO
Geoffrey Richardson
(50), an experienced investment professional with stints at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, are now returning home with so much money is due to the structure of the deal. The package also includes a so-called PIPE financing, with which they had secured around 450 million dollars from institutional investors; they will hold almost 16 percent of the company's shares in the future.
CEO and co-founder Wiegand will retain almost 9 percent of the shares after the deal.
However, his shares have triple voting rights, so that he can continue to exercise significant influence over the company.
The Chinese tech group Tencent, which holds almost 27 percent of the shares, will remain the largest shareholder in the future.
As the second largest single shareholder, the Atomico venture capital fund holds around 14.5 percent of the shares.
The new circumstances are also reflected in the company's supervisory board, which is led by former Airbus boss
Tom Enders
(62).
In addition to Tencent emissary
David Wallerstein
(47) and the venture capitalist and Skype founder
Niklas Zennström
(55), the previous Qell boss Engle will also sit on the six-person committee in the future.
These are the most promising air taxi manufacturers
Expand Joby Aviation area
Photo: Bradley Wentzel / Joby Aviation
The Californian start-up Joby, currently valued at around 6.3 billion dollars on the stock exchange, is probably currently furthest.
A prototype recently covered the longest measured distance of an air taxi with just one battery charge: around 250 kilometers - but without people on board.
Joby has been listed on Wall Street since mid-August, and the auto company Toyota is one of the anchor investors.
CEO
JoeBen Bevirt
expects
a market
launch
at the end of 2024 at the earliest
- and a capital
requirement
of 1.1 billion dollars by then.
Before going public, Joby told investors that they wanted to make profits as early as 2026 with a turnover of around 2 billion dollars - and turn over 20 billion dollars in ten years.
Calculated cost per aircraft: $ 1.3 million.
Expand the Lilium area
Enlarge imagePhoto: Lilium
The start-up founded in 2015 by CEO
Daniel Wiegand
(36) with around 700 employees is also aiming for Wall Street via Spac.
Lilium has already undertaken the first test flights with its five-seat prototype with tilt rotor technology.
At the end of 2020, however, one of the two models burned out.
The Munich-based company is currently concentrating, behind which investors include the Chinese Tencent group and TV star
Frank Thelen
(45) stand on the development of a new seven-seater (photo).
Later it will mainly fly over medium distances between different cities.
According to SEC documents, Lilium burned a total of around 200 million euros operationally in 2019 and 2020.
The approval processes with the authorities are ongoing, and it should start at the end of 2024.
According to SEC documents, Lilium currently calculates manufacturing costs of $ 2.5 million per jet - which can then bring in $ 10 million in profit over its entire lifetime.
After the IPO, Lilium is said to be worth around $ 3 billion.
Expand Volocopter area
Photo:
Roslan RAHMAN / AFP
The second German start-up in the segment is Volocopter, founded in 2011 and led by
Florian Reuter
.
The Volocopter City model (photo) flies with 18 rotors similar to a helicopter and significantly slower than flying taxis with wings.
It is intended to be used primarily over short distances within cities.
The Germans, whose investors include Daimler, want to offer a flight service as early as 2024 during the Olympic Games in Paris.
It should start shortly afterwards in Singapore.
In the last round of capital in spring 2021, Baden had raised 322 million euros.
AreaArcher expand
Photo: Al Arena
The only three-year-old start-up from Palo Alto presented its two-seater, autonomously flying prototype "Maker" in June 2021 (photo). Although Archer wants to go public on Wall Street via the company Atlas Crest via Spac's IPO in September, the public did not see an aircraft. The "Maker" is to be operated with tilt rotors and serve as the basis for the approval process with the flight authorities, but will later be replaced by a five-seat model flown by pilots. However, Archer is currently engaged in a spectacular legal battle with competitor Wisk: Both companies are accused of industrial espionage. In February, when the Spac IPO was announced,Archer had promised investors $ 12 billion in sales for 2030 - a "strategic restart" followed in the summer, and at the end of July Archer had to lower its pro-forma valuation from $ 2.7 billion by $ 1 billion. Even so, the planned financial maneuver is expected to bring in at least $ 600 million, maybe even more than a billion.
AreaWis purchase flaps
Photo: Zephyr Airworks / imago / Xinhua
The US start-up, which was only founded in 2019, emerged from a joint venture between Kitty Hawk and the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
Technically, the "Cora" model (photo), originally developed by Kitty Hawk, operates with a lift-and-cruise drive, so it has rotors for vertical take-off, which are then in the wind during the flight phase.
Wisk is currently engaged in a legal dispute with competitor Archer, in which both sides accuse each other of industrial espionage.
Area Kitty Haw purchase flaps
Enlarge image
The
start-up funded
by Google founder
Larry Page
(48) was one of the first to develop an airworthy passenger drone, but the "Flyer" project has now come to an end.
The company, led by the German
Sebastian Thrun
(54) as CEO, is
now
relying
on the autonomously flying model "Heaviside" (photo), which has already completed a number of test flights.
The shift in strategy of wanting to do without pilots from the start had caused internal distortions.
Kittyhawk promises that the two-seater will be in service as early as 2025.
Unfold areas
Photo: JOE KLAMAR / AFP
The start-up based in Guangzhou is considered to be the most competitive manufacturer from China.
Ehang has already performed a number of demonstration flights with his multirotor model 216 abroad (photo).
The holding is listed on the Nasdaq and is valued at around $ 1.5 billion - which is only a quarter of the highest valuation in spring 2021.
At that time, a critical report by the "Wolfpack" shortsellers raised doubts about the company's real production capability.
Similar to Kittyhawk, Ehang plans to have its air taxis fly without a pilot right from the start.
Open the Airbus area
Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa
The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is also working on air taxi concepts.
The approximately 2.3 tonne CityAirbus (photo) is designed for city traffic and is reminiscent of a helicopter with several rotors.
The multicopter took off on its maiden flight in May 2019.
In the future, it will be able to fly remotely controlled and carry up to four passengers on fixed routes.
Expand the Porsche area
Enlarge imagePhoto: Boeing
At the end of 2019, the car manufacturer Porsche also announced that it would develop an air taxi.
Similar to Joby, the model called "P3" should also fly with a lift-and-cruise drive, without the technically more complex tilt rotor technology.
It is questionable whether Lilium will really write the success story it was hoping for. The start-up, founded in 2015, has so far neither an approved aircraft nor a functioning business model. In recent years Wiegand had had the first test flights made with a five-seater prototype. The applications for approval from the EASA supervisory authority have been submitted, Wiegand hopes for approval by the end of 2024. However, for reasons the company is silent about, one of the two test aircraft burned out last year. Since then, Lilium has not taken any flights that it would have known about. The company is currently developing a new prototype with 7 seats with its 700 employees. According to Wiegand, the electrically powered hydrofoil jet will run between different cities in the future.
Lilium has posted an operating loss of around $ 200 million in the past two years alone.
According to our own estimates, another three quarters of a billion will be added by the end of 2024.
At least that's what the managers calculate in the SEC filings that were filed for the merger with Qell.
Their forecast was based on an ambitious assumption: that Lilium will be able to ramp up business quickly from 2024.
According to the plans, Lilium plans to sell just under 1,000 jets as early as 2027, generating a turnover of $ 5.8 billion a year.
That is more than the size of the entire world market predicted by the Porsche consultants up to that point.
lhy