Bumble Bee Flights gets Rs 300 crore for Air Taxi plant in Odisha

Bumble Bee Flights, a start-up that has designed and developed India’s first autonomous Air Mobility Solution capable of human transportation with multiple use case scenarios has raised Rs 300 crore ($37 million) in investment from UK-based technology conglomerate SRAM & MRAM Technologies and Resources Limited.

The Bengaluru-based start-up, which was founded in early 2022 by serial entrepreneur and Air Mobility Solutions expert Arjun Das, will use the funds to set up an assembly plant in Odisha for manufacturing the air taxis that can be used as air ambulance, air taxi, logistics, recreational use, or even defence applications.

The company plans to launch the first prototype by April 2023.  Bumble Bee Flights will manufacture air taxis under the brand Bee Flights that would be certified and available for production by 2024.

Further, Bee Flights air taxis would run on solar-charged swappable batteries and would weigh around 300 kgs compared to helicopters that weigh about 1000 kgs or more.

It has the capacity to carry one person along with a suitcase and can land on the rooftop of apartments as well which has adequate space unlike helicopters that need specific helipads. These air taxis can fly for 20 minutes for a distance of 20 kms.

According to Das, Bumble Bee Flights will design and manufacture these air taxis while partnering with operators across the globe to service, support and run the operations. Meanwhile, the first step would be obtaining a certification aimed for US, UK, UAE, India and Singapore.

“eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircrafts are the future of urban mobility and transport. These autonomous air taxis would not only ease the already burdened urban road infrastructure but will also work towards reducing carbon footprints,” said Das.

“We are like the Boeing or Airbus for Air Mobility Solutions,” he added while highlighting that Bee1 is the first air taxi from India that will be certified in multiple countries and is intended to be used for multiple purposes including human transportation, air ambulance, air taxi and in the logistics and supply chain sectors.

The start-up received the investment during the recently-concluded Make In Odisha Conclave 2022. This is also a step towards putting Odisha and India on the global air mobility solution map, said Das.

Booking an air taxi would be as easy as booking a taxi from Ola or Uber, he said.

Morgan Stanley expects the global urban air mobility or UAM market to grow 30 per cent annually between 2021 and 2040, reaching $1.5 trillion by 2040.

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