Wingcopter, Germany’s drone delivery startup, raises another $44M from the EIB
Wingcopter, a startup out of Germany that has made a name for itself in the world of delivery drones used primarily for delivery of medicine and other goods to remote areas, has picked up some more financing to expand its business. The European Investment Bank is putting €40 million (close to $44 million) into the startup, funding that it will use in two areas: further developing its hardware line; and to kick off a new business in logistics and delivery services, anchored by a fleet of its drones.
The funding is being described as “quasi-equity” — and it’s a common approach taken by the EIB (other examples here and here) that involves one portion of the funding coming in as equity and the rest as a venture loan. Tom Plümmer, Wingcopter’s CEO and co-founder, would not disclose the proportions of either in an interview. He said the plan is to raise a significant Series B next year — or whenever the markets turn around.
For now, this latest infusion brings the total raised by Wingcopter to €100 million, which has also been backed in two previous fundraises by a mix of strategic and financial backers such as the retail giant REWE, Xplorer Capital, Japan’s ITOCHU, and Expa, the investment firm started by Garrett Camp of Uber.
And it more than doubles Wingcopter’s previous valuation — a figure that it is not disclosing, either. But if you consider that its bigger U.S. counterpart Zipline last month raised $330 million at a valuation of $4.2 billion, Wingcopter clearly sees the opportunity in the market — and given it has raised only around one-tenth the amount overall, where it likely is right now.
Wingcopter’s raise is coming at a key moment in the wider vertical take-off and landing space overall. In addition to Zipline’s raise, just a week ago, the VTOL business Lilium, which is developing an air taxi business, disclosed that it was raising another $250 million, with $100 million committed so far from Tencent. The company is publicly listed in on NasdaqGS and its stock has been floundering and got a tiny bump from the news.
Indeed, in the more dicey financial waters of today, companies like Wingcopter, Zipline, and others in the space like Flytrex, have something that the air taxi businesses do not: active deployments, albeit small ones. The company has been working with Unicef in Malawi to help it deliver medicines to hard-to-reach areas, and the plan is to expand that service to more geographies and in more partnerships.