Lilium的eVTOL喷气式飞机豪赌：融资15亿美元，零交付，到2025年两次破产

做的是什么生意

Lilium designed an all-electric vertical take-off and landing jet for regional routes, targeting premium shuttle and air-taxi services, and booked more than 780 jets in orders and letters of intent before its first delivery.

启动资金：More than $1B raised privately before the 2021 Nasdaq listing via SPAC Qell (TechCrunch); Flight Plan put total deployment at ~$1.5B before insolvency.

起因

Four German engineers — Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, Patrick Nathen and Matthias Meiner — founded Lilium in Munich in 2015 around a two-seat prototype, betting that regional electric aviation was close enough to build. It raised more than $1B from private investors including Tencent, and in 2021 went public on Nasdaq via a reverse merger with SPAC Qell; Saudia Group ordered up to 100 jets and the company built a pipeline of 780+ aircraft.

经过

Lilium powered up its first full-scale prototype and in 2023 secured an FAA G-1 certification basis, but it was still years from delivery and burning cash faster than it raised. In October 2024 the German parliament's budget committee blocked a €50M guarantee for a €100M KfW convertible loan; Lilium GmbH filed for self-administered insolvency. On 2024-12-23 the company ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 people; two days later the Mobile Uplift consortium agreed to buy the operating assets with more than €200M pledged, planning to rehire staff.

结果

The rescue failed: promised funding from the consortium (including Slovak investor Marian Bocek's DTM) never arrived, and Lilium Aerospace filed for a second insolvency on 2025-02-21 and stopped operations. No commercial flight was ever delivered; the administrator later sold about 300 patents to US rival Archer Aviation for €18M.

可借鉴之处

15亿美元的登月计划可能在最后融资步骤中失败：Lilium的计划依赖一笔州贷款和一个救援财团——当两者都落空时，多年的工程和780个订单一文不值。