Tesla, Amazon Backer Baillie Gifford Invests $35M In Air Taxi Startup Lilium

Baillie Gifford has invested $35 million in Germany-based air-taxi startup Lilium, the Financial Times reported.

What Happened

The United Kingdom-based private investment firm holds a nearly 4% stake in Lilium as a result of the investment that valued the startup at more than $1 billion, according to the Financial Times.

Baillie Gifford is looking for "situations where there is the potential for a really transformative new market or product in the long term, while recognising that these will often take a lot of time to come to fruition," investment manager Michael Pye told the Financial Times.

The firm is best-known for being the largest external investor in electric vehicles maker Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and was also an early investor in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), the Space Exploration Company (or SpaceX), Spotify Technology SA (NYSE: SPOT), and Airbnb Inc.

Baillie Gifford, earlier this year, invested in California-based Lilium rival Joby. Pye told the Financial Times that the firm's Lilium funding is higher than what it invested in Joby.

Lilium, which is aiming to launch five-seater city-to-city air taxis, has raised $375 million to date, according to the Financial Times.

Image Credit: Lilium.