Google Co-Founder Leading Search for Flying Cars?

Google Inc. CEO and co-founder Larry Page is secretly backing two Silicon Valley startup companies—Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk—that are developing competing flying cars, Bloomberg News reports.

Both companies are based close to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. But Page has sought to keep his involvement in them hidden, according to the news agency, which doesn’t cite its sources.

Bloomberg says Page has invested more than $100 million in Zee.Aero since it was launched in 2010. The company has a manufacturing facility at a nearby NASA research center where it is testing prototype electric car-planes (pictured).

Page has provided unspecified funding to Kitty Hawk for about a year, according to the report. The company has about a dozen engineers, who are developing what the company describes as a giant “quadcopter drone.”