Lilium, the German start-up developing the world's first all-electric vertical take-off and landing jet, has won the 2018 Early Stage Company of the Year award at the Global Cleantech 100 Awards produced by CTG (Cleantech Group).

The Global Cleantech 100 represents the most innovative and promising ideas that aim to solve the clean technology challenges of the future. Global Cleantech 100 - where Lilium has also been named - is a comprehensive list of private companies with the highest potential to make a significant market impact within the next 5 to 10 years.

Lilium was recognised for its innovative work developing an all electric, 5-seater jet that will fly at speeds up to 300 km per hour with a flying time of up to 1 hour on a single charge. The company has already flown its 2-seater prototype of the jet in the skies above Munich.

Patrick Nathen, Lilium co-founder and Head of Design & Calculation said: "We are making incredible progress towards our dream of developing a low-cost, zero-emissions, high speed jet that will revolutionise the way people move in and around the world's cities. To win this award is a great privilege for everyone at Lilium, and also a sign of how much we've achieved already, and how much potential the Lilium jet has."

The Global Cleantech 100 list is collated by combining proprietary CTG research data, with weighted qualitative judgments of hundreds of nominations, and specific inputs from a global 86-person Expert Panel. To qualify for the list, companies must be independent, for-profit, cleantech companies that are not listed on any major stock exchange.

Richard Youngman, CEO, CTG (Cleantech Group) said: "Transportation is one of the world's biggest cleantech challenges. As more and more people are moving around the globe, we need companies coming up with sustainable, innovative solutions. Lilium is a worthy winner of this Early Stage Company of the Year award as their all-electric jet has the potential to make the dream of zero- emissions mass-transportation a reality."

This year, a record number of nominations were received: 12,300 distinct companies from 61 countries. These companies were weighted and scored to create a short list of 312 companies. Short-listed nominees were reviewed by CTG's Expert Panel, resulting in a finalized list of 100 companies from 18 countries.