Wingcopter raises €40 million from EU to scale up ‘new era for drone delivery’
German drone solutions startup Wingcopter announced today that it has received €40 million in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to scale up its services and ramp up production of its latest model.
According to the developers, the Wingcopter 198 ushers in a “new era for drone delivery”. Additions to the latest version of Wingcopter’s aircraft, “the world’s first triple-drop delivery drone,” include the delivery of up to three packages to multiple locations during a single flight.
In addition, a single operator can fly up to 10 units simultaneously and out of line of sight. The model also features an AI-based visual detect-and-avoid solution and smart precision landing capabilities.
The Wingcopter 198 has a wingspan of, you guessed it, 198 cm, and stretches 152 cm from front to tail. It can carry up to 6 kg and with a load of 5 kg it has a range of 75 km. Without any charge, it can fly up to 110 km.
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The drone’s default cruising speed is 100 km/h, but it has a maximum speed of 144 km/h. In addition, the developers say it can withstand strong winds thanks to a patented tilt rotor technology – 15 m/s average, 20 m/s gusts.
Creating jobs at home and abroad
The €40 million investment is supported by the European Commission’s InvestEU program under its sustainable infrastructure window, and the funds are provided as a quasi-equity investment, meaning it is positioned between equity and debt.
Of course, the EIB, the lending arm of the European Union, doesn’t spend on projects simply because it has cool technology. It also looks at wider social and environmental benefits when deciding whether or not to fund a project.
“Our goal is also to improve lives by creating many jobs – in R&D and manufacturing at our headquarters in Europe, as well as in the countries where we provide services, where we train and qualify local youth to operate our drone delivery networks,” said co-founder and CEO Tom Plümmer.
In addition, replacing carbon-intensive forms of light trucking with electric drones will reduce emissions and help advance the bloc’s climate agenda.
“Supporting European cleantech pioneers with global reach, such as Wingcopter, is central to our mission,” said EIB Vice President Ambroise Fayolle. “Electric cargo drones are an important vertical segment for a sustainable transportation and logistics future.”
Bring home
Wingcopter expects to operate its flagship model in Germany for the first time this summer. It will be launched in a pilot project that will test the potential of on-demand transportation of groceries and consumer goods.
The project, in turn funded by the German Federal Ministry of Digitization and Transport and carried out in cooperation with the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, aims to improve local offerings in rural German communities through a sustainable delivery service
Wingcopter was founded in 2017 by Tom Plümmer, Jonathan Hesselbarth and Ansgar Kadura. To date, the advanced air mobility startup has raised more than €100 million in nine funding rounds. Investors include European retailer REWE Group, ITOCHU, Xplorer Capital and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s investment arm Expa.
The Darmstadt-based developer is both a manufacturer of aviation-grade drone technology and a service provider for a wide variety of drone operations. It has already deployed its unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Wingcopter 178, to deliver supplies for small-scale commercial and humanitarian missions, and to conduct geological surveys and infrastructure surveys in difficult-to-reach areas.
One of the major advantages of drones in cargo operations in hard-to-reach and rural environments is that they do not require additional infrastructure to take off and land. Last summer, the company raised nearly 40 million euros to deploy some of its drones in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Wingcopter has also participated in a joint project between UNICEF and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Malawi, delivering life-saving medicines and medical supplies.
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