Heuking advises SITA on investment in air mobility provider Volocopter

Bruchsal/ Munich — SITA, the world’s leading specia­list for commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy in avia­tion, has joined Volo­c­op­ter as a new inves­tor in the Series E finan­cing round and will become its digi­tal and IT systems part­ner for vertiports.

SITA was selec­ted by Volo­c­op­ter as the prefer­red digi­tal and IT systems part­ner for Verti­ports. Under this agree­ment, SITA is the latest inves­tor to parti­ci­pate in Volocopter’s Series E funding round, under­pin­ning the stra­te­gic vision of this part­ner­ship. A team led by Düssel­­dorf-based Heuking part­ner Dr. Martin Imhof provi­ded legal advice to SITA on the successful invest­ment and conclu­sion of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Volocopter.

Volo­c­op­ter is a pioneer in the field of urban air mobi­lity (UAM). The company is deve­lo­ping elec­tric verti­cal take-off passen­ger cabs (eVTOL) and cargo drones that will fly auto­no­mously. Volo­c­op­ter brings air mobi­lity to the world’s mega­ci­ties, provi­ding sustainable and scalable UAM ecosys­tems with infra­struc­ture and opera­ti­ons part­ners to enable a new kind of trans­por­ta­tion. Volo­c­op­ter GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Bruch­sal, Germany, was foun­ded in 2011 and today employs more than 500 people in Germany and Singa­pore. The company has seve­ral inves­tors, inclu­ding Geely, NEOM, Merce­­des-Benz Group, Intel Capi­tal, Honey­well and BlackRock.

In 2022, Volo­c­op­ter laun­ched a new Series E funding round to advance the global certi­fi­ca­tion process with EASA, FAA and other avia­tion autho­ri­ties, as well as the launch of commer­cial air taxi services in cities such as Singa­pore, Osaka, Rome and Paris.

SITA is the IT provi­der for the air trans­port indus­try, deli­ve­ring solu­ti­ons for airlines, airports, aircraft, govern­ments and inter­na­tio­nal orga­niza­ti­ons. The Group designs, deve­lops and supports tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons with the aim of faci­li­ta­ting all steps of an air jour­ney. SITA Group covers 95% of all inter­na­tio­nal desti­na­ti­ons and works with over 2,800 avia­tion and public sector custo­mers in all parts of the world. SITA employs more than 4,500 people and opera­tes in 126 count­ries worldwide.

Advi­sor to SITA: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A),
Slaven Kova­ce­vic (co-lead, VC/PE),
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (Commer­cial and Corpo­rate Law),
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Krumme (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Astrid Lued­tke (IT/IP),
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (Anti­trust Law/Unfair Compe­ti­tion), all in Düsseldorf