VÆRIDION raises €30 million, wins €94.5 million EU grant for electric Microliner

VÆRIDION, a Munich-based start-up building a fully electric nine-seat passenger aircraft called the Microliner, said on Thursday, 5 November 2026 that it has raised €30 million in a Series A2 funding round. Dutch investors SHIFT Invest and Invest-NL co-led the round, with the company's existing backers World Fund, Project A and Vsquared Ventures also taking part. Separately, the European Commission has selected the company's CAROLUS project for a €94.5 million grant from its Innovation Fund to set up a final assembly plant at Oberpfaffenhofen Airport near Munich, taking the money announced to about €124 million.

Certifying a new aircraft is slow and costly, and battery weight limits how far an electric plane can fly. A fresh equity round plus one of the larger grants from the EU's Innovation Fund shows that public and private investors in Europe are still willing to back a narrow, short-range version of the idea: small aircraft on routes of a few hundred kilometres, where battery weight matters less.

The Microliner is aimed at regional routes between smaller airports that big jets do not serve well. A "conforming prototype" is an aircraft built to the same design that will be submitted for certification, rather than a test model; it is the step regulators need before they can approve a new type. The company has already completed two pre-application contracts with EASA, the regulator that would certify the plane in Europe, including work on high-voltage electrical systems with GKN Aerospace, according to its own releases.

The grant is the larger part of the package, and it is aimed at a factory, not at research. If the agreement is signed in 2027 as expected, the money would go to a final assembly line at Oberpfaffenhofen, so that the company can move from one prototype to series production. The Dutch side of the round also matters: Invest-NL is a state-backed investment fund, and a Dutch report said its share was €5 million, made possible by a guarantee under the EU's InvestEU programme. The company has a subsidiary in Delft in the Netherlands.

For Indian founders and engineers in aerospace and batteries, the round is a clear example of how Europe now finances hardware start-ups: equity from specialist climate funds, backed by state investors and very large grants for manufacturing, rather than venture money alone.

Peepals calculation: The €30 million round and the €94.5 million grant add up to €124.5 million, matching the "about €124 million" announced. The grant is about 76% of that total (94.5 ÷ 124.5), and the new equity round is a little over twice the €14 million the company raised in December 2024 (30 ÷ 14 ≈ 2.1). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: The company can begin building its first conforming prototype, the aircraft that will be used for certification work, from early 2027.

Long-term: If the grant agreement is signed and certification follows, a final assembly line near Munich would let the company build Microliners in series from about 2030, and regional airlines would have a battery-electric option for short routes.

Who is affected: Regional airlines and small airports in Europe, aerospace suppliers including battery makers, the company's investors, and engineers working on electric propulsion.

What to watch next: The signing of the Innovation Fund grant agreement, which the company expects in 2027, and the start of prototype manufacturing in early 2027.

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