Raue has successfully advised the German air taxi start-up Volocopter, which became insolvent at the end of 2024, in connection with the successful sale to Diamond Aircraft by the insolvency administrator. Raue advised in particular on the existing contractual relationships and structures. The aircraft manufacturer Diamond Aircraft, based in Austria, has been majority-owned by the Chinese automotive group Wanfeng since 2017. With the successful sale, Volocopter can once again position itself competitively and maintain the Bruchsal site in Germany.
In recent years, Raue has played a leading role in advising Volocopter on numerous large-volume financing rounds and also comprehensively on corporate law, aviation and foreign trade law as well as regulatory issues, thus playing a decisive role in the development and planned market launch of the electric air taxi system. The comprehensive legal advice covered a series of financing rounds with a total volume of over 500 million euros and included numerous legal specialisms.
The VC team, led by Prof. Dr Andreas Nelle, has demonstrated its expertise in the implementation of equity financing rounds with investors such as NEOM, Geely, Avala Capital, Continental, Daimler, DB Schenker, Intel Capital, btov Partners, BlackRock and leading family offices, as well as the conclusion of convertible loans and employee shareholdings. In addition, the Raue law team advised on mergers, corporate governance and regulatory issues and conducted contentious proceedings. In close cooperation with the insolvency administrator, the team was able to support the rescue of the startup, which has since been valued at over EUR 1.5 billion, from the end of 2024.
About Volocopter
Volocopter brings Urban Air Mobility (UAM) to the world’s largest cities and aims to improve people’s quality of life with a completely new type of mobility. To this end, Volocopter is working with partners to develop a sustainable and scalable UAM ecosystem, including infrastructure and operations. Volocopter’s family of vertical take-off aircraft offers passengers and goods fast, safe and emission-free flights directly to their destination. www.volocopter.com
(24 March 2025)