VÆRIDION raises €30M Series A2 and €94.5M EU grant to build its first electric Microliner

VÆRIDION (Munich) has closed a €30 million Series A2 led by SHIFT Invest and Invest-NL, with existing investors World Fund, Project A, Vsquared Ventures, and deep-tech investor Alexander Rittweger also participating. Announced on 5 November, the round finances the construction of the first conforming prototype of the company's Microliner — a clean-sheet, nine-passenger all-electric aircraft targeting regional routes up to 400 km. In parallel, VÆRIDION's CAROLUS project has been selected by the European Commission for a €94.5 million Innovation Fund grant to establish a final assembly facility at Oberpfaffenhofen Airport near Munich. CAROLUS was selected from 358 applications; VÆRIDION is the only aviation company among 12 large-scale award recipients, and the only German company in this cohort. Including the equity round and earlier public funding, total capitalisation stands at approximately €60 million; the grant agreement is expected to be signed in 2027.

A structural problem in short-haul aviation

Regional aviation has not had a new aircraft in its size class for 30 years. More than 21,000 small turboprop aircraft worldwide average 23 years in service, and the economics of short routes have deteriorated sharply: jet fuel costs more than doubled year-on-year by October 2026, and around 120 regional routes in Europe were discontinued in the five years to mid-2026 as fuel and maintenance costs made them unviable. VÆRIDION's bet is that electrification can reset those economics entirely.

The Microliner targets operating costs below €0.40 per seat-kilometre — a threshold that the company says allows operators to price short routes competitively with first-class rail while running profitable services. Germany alone has more airfields accessible to the Microliner than ICE high-speed rail stations, representing a supply of route opportunities without viable aircraft to serve them. The aircraft carries up to nine passengers over 400 km under IFR conditions, or four passengers over 550 km under VFR, with a cargo variant also planned. Its design combines a glider-inspired wing with integrated modular batteries and a multi-engine, single-propeller propulsion system developed to EASA CS-23 certification standards.

Certification progress is real: in the past 12 months, VÆRIDION completed its Preliminary Design Review and a second Pre-Application Contract with EASA, the latter specifically de-risking the novel high-voltage battery and propulsion systems that sit at the core of the design.

Two tranches of capital for two stages of risk

The €30M equity round and the EU grant address different risk horizons. The equity finances the first conforming Microliner and the assembly and testing of its battery and propulsion system on a ground-test rig at Oberpfaffenhofen — the step immediately before flight testing. The €94.5M CAROLUS grant addresses the subsequent industrial challenge: manufacturing the aircraft at scale once EASA certification is obtained.

Commercial traction is in place: 130+ provisional aircraft commitments valued at over €730 million, with ASL Group as launch customer and KLM, BayernLB, and TrueNoord on its Market Advisory Committee. Provisional commitments are not contracts. But the combination — a disciplined development timeline, a certification approach using established EASA frameworks, the EU's institutional imprimatur on the industrialisation bet, and a credible demand signal across airlines, charter operators, and lessors — makes VÆRIDION's Series A2 more legible than most hardware bets at equivalent stage. Thijs Gitmans, General Partner at SHIFT Invest, frames it plainly: "VÆRIDION has chosen a certification pathway regulators already understand and has delivered real hardware on a disciplined budget." The 18 months ahead are dominated by a single executable goal: get a conforming aircraft off the ground.