Sebastian Born is one of four co-founders of Lilium. With Daniel Wiegand, Patrick Nathen and Matthias Meiner, all engineers or doctoral students from the Technical University of Munich, he started the company in 2015. The name nods to the glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal.
Early support came from the European Space Agency's Bavarian incubation centre. In April 2017 an unmanned two-seat prototype, the Lilium Eagle, flew near Munich. In September 2017 a round of more than $90 million came in from Atomico, Tencent, LGT and Freigeist. The five-seat Phoenix flew in May 2019.
More than $240 million followed in March 2020. On 15 September 2021 Lilium listed on Nasdaq through a merger with the SPAC Qell, at a value of about $2.4 billion. It had no meaningful revenue and a 2020 loss of €188 million.
In October 2024 the two operating subsidiaries filed for insolvency, and Nasdaq delisted the company on 7 November. A planned rescue did not bring in the promised money. In February 2025 Lilium filed for insolvency again.