Volocopter, which aims to develop an autonomous air taxi service, extends its Series C by another €37M, taking the round total to €87M
Volocopter, a German company that's developing autonomous electric takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for commercial air taxi services …
Context & Ripple Effects
Volocopter's Series C is being topped up twice in six months: after a €50M round led by Volvo's owner in September 2019 brought total funding to €85M, this €37M extension pushes the round itself to €87M. The company is spending that capital on autonomous eVTOL aircraft intended for commercial air taxi service — a capital-intensive path where certification and flight testing, not software, set the burn rate.
The raise also lands inside a visibly active German vertical-flight cluster: Wingcopter, another Germany-based eVTOL maker focused on medical-supply delivery, is on a parallel funding path in the related coverage.
First-order effects
- Volocopter gains an extended runway to keep developing and certifying its autonomous eVTOL air taxis, with the Series C now totaling €87M.
Second-order effects
- Germany-based peers like Wingcopter — which went on to raise a $22M Series A months later — compete with Volocopter for the same investor appetite for German vertical-takeoff aircraft, making each raise a signal for the other's valuations.
Third-order effects
- The pattern held: Volocopter's extension proved a stepping stone to a $170M Series E at a $1.87B valuation two years later, suggesting eVTOL developers that sustain certification progress can keep tapping growth-stage capital rather than stalling at venture scale.
The trend: Autonomous eVTOL developers are funding long certification timelines through repeated extension rounds, with German startups emerging as the densest cluster of that capital flow.