Wingcopter, the German delivery drone manufacturer and service provider, has raised $42 million in new funding, tripling the company’s total equity raised to more than $60 million to date. Leading German retailer REWE Group, as well as German investors Salvia and XAI technologies, have come on board as new shareholders.
With the fresh funding, Wingcopter will be able to further expand its drone delivery services globally and ramp up production of its eVTOL delivery drone, the Wingcopter 198.
The company’s production facility in Germany is designed to manufacture thousands of Wingcopter drones per year and will soon start with partly automated production work, significantly speeding up the production process.
It also plans to use the capital injection to accelerate the firm’s R&D efforts with regards to new product features and to hire 80 new employees across all departments within the next months.
Thanks to its patented tilt-rotor mechanism and software algorithms, the Wingcopter 198 can take off and land vertically like a multicopter, while flying long distances as efficiently and quickly as a fixed-wing aircraft, even in heavy rain and wind.
Tom Plümmer, Co-founder and CEO of Wingcopter, says: “At Wingcopter, we create efficient and sustainable drone solutions to save and improve lives. For this, we are hiring passionate pioneers with whom we build what has not existed before. The new funding, combined with growing revenues, puts us in an excellent position to establish our industry-leading drone delivery solution with our customers around the globe to optimize supply chains.”
Christoph Eltze, Executive Board member Digital, Customer & Analytics and IT at REWE Group, adds: “REWE Group is one of the most innovative companies in German retail. For years, we have relied on strong partnerships with innovation leaders, especially in emerging trends. With Wingcopter, we have found such a new partner.”
Wingcopter is a German manufacturer of eVTOL, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and provider of drone delivery services, focused on optimizing medical supply chains, as well as last-mile logistics of packages, tools, spare parts, food, and groceries.
