German air shuttle start-up Lilium merges with Qell

German air shuttle start-up company Lilium has entered into merger agreement with publicly listed special purpose acquisition company Qell.

Established last year in San Francisco, Qell specialises in developing next-generation and sustainable mobility.

The post-merged company is expected to receive gross proceeds of approximately $830m from the deal, which includes $450m from a fully committed common stock PIPE offering and $380m cash.

Upon closing of the transaction, the combined business will be valued at $3.3bn.

The merged entity will be called Lilium and listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LILM.

In a separate development, Lilium has unveiled a new seven-seater model to complement its five-seater fixed-wing prototype.

Designed for ease of manufacturability and scalability, the aircraft will feature 30 times fewer components compared with commercial aircraft.

The seven-seater Lilium Jet will have a range of more than 155 miles and cruise at 175mph.

The aircraft will be the first model to go into serial production. It has already received the CRI-A01 certification basis last year from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

Lilium co-founder and CEO Daniel Wiegand said: “We’re incredibly excited to reveal the development of our seven-seater Lilium Jet and announce the next stage of our growth. This is a validation of all the hard work over the last five years from our talented team and our world-class partners and investors.

“Our vision is to create a sustainable and accessible mode of high-speed travel and bring this to every community. Transport infrastructure is broken. It is costly in personal time, space consumption and carbon emissions. We are pursuing our unique electric jet technology because it is the key to higher-capacity aircraft, with a lower cost per seat mile while delivering low noise and low emissions.

“Today’s announcement brings us closer to launching our passenger service. In Qell, we have found a partner who shares our ambition for sustainable mobility and brings tremendous experience in running mobility and hardware businesses.”