Lilium

What did it do?

Lilium was a Bavaria-based aviation company developing the Lilium Jet, an electric aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing. The five-seat prototype, with 36 electric fans mounted on movable flaps, targeted a speed of 300 km/h and a range of 300 km. The company planned to enter the air taxi market in 2025.

Why did it shut down?

Lilium lost hundreds of millions of euros every year without generating meaningful revenue; in March 2024 its accumulated losses were reported to have reached EUR 1.359 billion. As the certification timetable stretched, its capital needs grew and the company raised fresh equity again and again. In October 2024, after failing to reach agreement with the Bavarian government on a EUR 50 million loan, it filed for insolvency proceedings for its German subsidiaries. On 20 December 2024 operations stopped and around 1,000 people were laid off. A rescue plan by an investor consortium was announced, but the promised money never arrived and the company filed for insolvency a second time in February 2025.

The story

In April 2017, at a small airfield near Munich, an unmanned two-seat prototype lifted off vertically. The aircraft, called the Lilium Eagle, was the first tangible step in four young engineers' dream of taking intercity travel into the sky. Eight years later the same company passed into history, having gone insolvent twice.

Lilium was founded in 2015 by Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, Matthias Meiner and Patrick Nathen of the Technical University of Munich, and took its name from the aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal. The five-seat prototype, which first flew in May 2019, had 36 electric fans mounted on movable flaps and could take off vertically and transition to horizontal flight. The company raised USD 90 million in September 2017 and USD 240 million in a Tencent-led round in March 2020. When it began trading on NASDAQ through a SPAC merger in September 2021, it had no meaningful revenue but was valued at USD 2.4 billion. The same year the Brazilian airline Azul signed a letter of intent for 220 aircraft.

Yet developing and certifying an aircraft meant more money every year. Losses were EUR 188 million in 2020, EUR 253 million in 2022 and EUR 263 million in 2023. In March 2024 accumulated losses were reported to have reached EUR 1.359 billion. In 2023 the company raised fresh equity again and again. Meanwhile, some aviation academics and former employees had openly questioned whether the aircraft could meet its performance targets.

The final blow came from politics. After failing to reach agreement with the Bavarian government on a EUR 50 million loan, the board filed for insolvency proceedings for the German subsidiaries in October 2024. On 20 December 2024 operations were halted and around 1,000 people were laid off. A few days later it was announced that an investor consortium called Mobile Uplift would buy parts of the company; but the promised money never arrived, and a second insolvency filing followed in February 2025.

Lilium shows that in deep-tech ventures, time is a cost line too. Every time the certification timetable slipped, the capital required grew, and in the end a single loan decision brought the whole structure down.

Lessons for founders

• In a sector where certification takes years, plan your cash for the worst case: regulatory approval arriving two or three years late.
• Do not put public support at the centre of a rescue plan; political decisions can change at the last minute.
• Keep your performance claims open to scrutiny by independent engineers; technical doubts often surface in public before they reach investors.

Sources

1. Lilium GmbH (Wikipedia)
2. Electric aircraft startup Lilium ceases operations, 1,000 workers laid off (TechCrunch, 2024-12-23)
3. German electric jet maker Lilium files for bankruptcy for second time (Yahoo Finance, 2025-02-21)

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