Volocopter
eVTOL / air mobilityGermany
New to Unitard
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.7 BillionToday
~-95%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1.7 Billion ’23
- 💔Became a UnitardDec 2024
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$750M
Total raised
$153K/day
Burned · 13.5y alive
Funding: Axios / Aerotime / press
Current status
Insolvency (Dec 2024)
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2011–2025The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2011
2011
Founded after a flight on a yoga ball
German founders fly the world's first crewed electric multicopter — the pilot perched on an exercise ball — and set out to build air taxis.
Wikipedia
2021
2021
Joins the unicorn club
Funding rounds push the air-taxi developer past a $1B valuation as the eVTOL race heats up.
Reuters
2023
2023
The peak: $1.7B$1.7B
A 2023 round values the company at $1.7B as it chases certification and a promised air-taxi debut over Paris.
Reuters
2024
2024
Certification slips, cash runs out
The VoloCity still can't carry paying passengers at scale, and rescue-funding talks come up empty.
Reuters
2022–25
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Employees called it years early: Glassdoor reviews kept noting a company with no revenue, living entirely on investor money. By late 2024 the warnings turned blunt — reviewers described a firm out of cash with no product in service and leaders offering no clear direction.
Dec 2024
Dec 2024
Insolvency — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Files at the end of December 2024 — $750M raised, and no paying passengers ever carried at scale.
Reuters
2025
2025
Sold out of insolvency
Diamond Aircraft, part of China's Wanfeng group, takes over the assets to keep the air-taxi project alive.
Reuters
$1.62Bof peak value erased · 13 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Volocopter developed electric vertical-takeoff air taxis and reached a $1.7B valuation in a 2023 round. Certification delays and a cash crunch arrived before it could carry paying passengers at scale. The company filed for insolvency at the end of December 2024.
Source: Reuters; air-taxi developer
Where they went
- Dirk HokeCEOPresident and Chief Executive Officer at Voith Group
- Stephan Wolfco-founder (conceived the manned multicopter after 25 years in software, including industrial automation at Siemens)Not on record
- Alexander Zoselco-founderNot on record
- Thomas Senkelco-founder, designer and builder of the VC1 — and the man who flew the world's first crewed all-electric eVTOL flight in Oct 2011Not on record
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
