Skift Take
PayPal founder Peter Thiel once said: "We wanted flying cars. Instead we got 140 characters." But some investors now think flying driverless taxis will be viable by 2024. We have that and other travel startup news in this week's roundup.
This week, travel startups announced more than $300 million in funding.
>>Volocopter, which plans to bring battery-powered air taxis to cities by 2024, raised about $242 million (€200 million) in Series D funding.
The German company has raised more than $440 million since its founding in 2011. Investors include Atlantia, Continental, NTT, Avala Capital, and BlackRock.
Volocopter builds driverless aircraft and heliports, and it plans to run a commercial passenger service in 2023. It is already offering 15-minute tourist flights in Singapore for $360.
In related news, Lilium, a German startup building electric vertical takeoff and landing passenger jets, is in talks to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, Bloomberg News reported.
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