Wingcopter co-founders (L-R): Ansgar Kadura, Tom Plummer, and Jonathan Hesselbarth | Image credit: Wingcopter

Darmstadt, Germany-based Wingcopter, a startup that develops and sells transport drones for humanitarian and civil applications, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $42M (approximately €39.73M) in a fresh round of funding.

This funding is part of a Series A extension round, tripling the company’s total equity raise to more than $60M (approximately €56.76M), to date. Prior to this, in January 2021, Wingcopter raised $22M (then, approx €18M) in its Series A round of funding.

The funding comes shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the Airworthiness Criteria for the Wingcopter 198, which marked a critical milestone in the US Type Certification Process of the company’s flagship aircraft.

The investment came from renowned financial and strategic investors. Leading German retailer REWE Group as well as German investors Salvia and XAI technologies participated in this round as new investors. They were joined by Japanese conglomerate ITOCHU and existing investors Futury Capital from Germany and Silicon Valley-based Xplorer Capital.

REWE Group is one of Germany’s largest grocery retailers with 12,000 stores across Europe. According to the company, REWE Group is an ideal addition to its investor base and a sign that Wingcopter’s future will expand beyond medical drone delivery services.

Salvia, with an investment focus on disruptive technologies, will support Wingcopter’s growth path with its longstanding company-building expertise.

XAI technologies, founded by machine vision pioneer Enis Ersü, will add additional value thanks to the team’s deep knowledge and experience in the fields of sensor technology and industrial automation.

Wingcopter says that the proceeds will help the company to further expand its drone delivery services globally and ramp up production of its eVTOL delivery drone, the Wingcopter 198. The company has witnessed a continuously growing demand for its new unmanned aircraft system and has already sold most production slots for this and next year.

The production facility for the drone delivery company in Germany is built to produce thousands of Wingcopter drones annually and will shortly start with partly automated production work, significantly speeding up the production process.

Additionally, Wingcopter plans to use the funds to accelerate its R&D efforts with regard to new product features and to increase its workforce by onboarding 80 new employees across all departments within the next months.

Co-founder and CEO of Wingcopter, Tom Plummer, 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 optimise supply chains.”

Wingcopter was launched in 2017 by Tom Plümmer, Jonathan Hesselbarth, and Ansgar Kadura. The company is a developer, manufacturer, and operator of an unmanned eVTOL, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and provider of drone delivery services, focused on optimising medical supply chains, as well as last-mile logistics of packages, tools, spare parts, food, and groceries.

The Wingcopter 198 can take off and land vertically like a multicopter, while flying long distances as effectively and rapidly as a fixed-wing aircraft, even in rain and severe winds, because of its proprietary tilt-rotor mechanism and software algorithms.

The company says, “Taking off and landing vertically like multi-copters, Wingcopters fly long distances as efficiently and quickly as fixed-wing aircraft, reaching ranges of up to 75 miles (120 kilometres) and a Guinness world record speed of 150 mph (240 km/h). Even in strong winds of up to 44 mph (70 km/h) or inclement weather, Wingcopters fly autonomously and reliably.”

The drones are also used for the efficient inspection of public infrastructure and for long-range mapping applications.

The use of autonomous cargo drones for on-demand, quick, and environmentally friendly delivery has exploded in recent years as more and more businesses and governments see its potential. 

This is underscored by Wingcopter’s recent partnership agreement with Continental Drones that aims to deploy 12,000 Wingcopter drones over the next years to deliver goods throughout sub-Saharan Africa by building a new layer of infrastructure in the sky.

Other Authorized Partners that act as strong local operators or distributors in their respective geographies include ITOCHU in Japan and Synerjet in Latin America, which both became investors in Wingcopter in addition to signing the partnership agreements.

In a country in southeastern Africa – Malawi, where the company has been active since 2019, Wingcopter will expand its network operations with new Wingcopter 198 drones and more hubs. This will help transport various medical goods – including emergency medicines and COVID vaccines – to remote health centres, in line with the company’s goal to save and improve the lives of people all over the world.

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