Lilium electric planes will never take off: the company stopped working and fired employees

German startup Lilium, which developed electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, has officially announced that it will cease operations. The startup, which in 10 years attracted investments worth more than $1 billion and went public, was unable to find funding and emerge from insolvency. As a result, about 1,000 employees lost their jobs.

Image source: lilium.com

According to TechCrunch, Gründerszene was the first to report the cessation of the company’s activities. Lilium CEO, Patrick Nathen, confirmed this information in a post on LinkedIn. “After 10 years and 10 months, Lilium ceased operations. The company that I founded with Daniel, Sebastian and Matthias can no longer fulfill our shared dream of greener aviation. This is heartbreaking, especially given the irony of the moment,” Nathen wrote.

The layoffs affected almost all of the company’s employees. Days before the full shutdown, Lilium had already laid off about 200 workers, according to a Dec. 16 regulatory filing. In turn, a company representative declined to comment in detail, noting only that “the company will provide details as soon as possible.”

Image source: lilium.com

Let us recall that Lilium developed electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft that were capable of reaching speeds of up to 100 km/h. The startup actively attracted investors, including the Chinese company Tencent, and concluded large contracts, including an order for 100 electric aircraft from Saudi Arabia. In 2021, Lilium went public on the Nasdaq exchange through a merger with SPAC Qell. However, despite the successes achieved, including the creation of a full-size prototype, the question of mass production did not arise.

In October, Lilium announced its intention to file for insolvency after failing to raise emergency funding from the German government. As part of the bankruptcy procedure, the company lost control over its divisions, including Lilium eAircraft, and the auditing company KPMG took over the sale of assets. Thus, a promising startup that claimed to be a leader in the field of electric aviation was unable to overcome financial difficulties and was forced to cease operations.