By Nadine Schimroszik
BERLIN – German air taxi startup Volocopter is recruiting Dirk Hoke, former head of the defence and aerospace division at Airbus, to take over as CEO in September.
Hoke will succeed long-time Volocopter boss Florian Reuter and can be tasked with efficiently finishing the certification course of for the corporate’s electrical flying taxis.
“It’s going to be an extremely thrilling but in addition troublesome time,” Hoke instructed Reuters on Tuesday.
The chief, like Reuter, labored at Siemens earlier than becoming a member of Airbus.
Volocopter is in a pricey race with corporations around the globe together with Lilium, Joby Aviation and Airbus to have the primary flying taxi licensed by regulators. It's aiming to attain this in round two years.
To shoulder the price of certification, and the related building of manufacturing amenities, the corporate from Bruchsal, close to Stuttgart, is elevating extra money.
Simply final week, it mentioned it had attracted 153 million euros from traders. It's now valued at round 1.5 billion euros,
“There are nonetheless some traders who need to assist us finally attain 500 million euros,” mentioned the chairman of Volocopter’s advisory board, Stefan Klocke.
Volocopter is aiming for a inventory market itemizing, although just a little later than initially deliberate.
“We need to go public with the photographs from the Summer season Olympics in Paris,” mentioned Klocke, setting 2024 because the goal.
Since its founding in 2011, Volocopter has raised greater than 495 million euros from traders together with Deutsche Bahn, Intel and Mercedes-Benz.
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