SkyDrive Raises $37 Million for Flying Cars: Travel Startup Funding This Week
Photo Credit: SkyDrive ran a four-minute test flight of its flying car prototype in August. SkyDrive
Skift Take
Entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel once famously said: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." Fast forward to 2020: SkyDrive hopes to give us flying cars in a few years, bringing remote areas closer. It’s one of a few startups dreaming big in this week’s roundup.
Travel Startup Funding This Week
Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding. Please email Travel Tech Reporter Justin Dawes at [email protected] if you have funding news.
This week, travel startups announced more than $46 million in funding.
>>SkyDrive, which is trying to build flying cars, has raised about $37 million (3.9 billion yen) in a Series B funding round.
Development Bank of Japan and Itochu Corporation participated. So did Strive, Obayashi Corporation, NEC Corporation, Eneos Innovation Partners, Itochu Technology Ventures, and others.
The company hopes to achieve mass production by 2026. Other companies are working on similar technologies. Lilium, a startup building an air taxi service, raised $240 million in funding earlier this year.
In late August, SkyDrive said it had done a piloted flight test of a manned electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The one-se
