Air taxi developer Archer receives a further 300 million dollars

A few weeks ago, the Californian air taxi developer raised $430 million from investors. Now, BlackRock and others have added another $300 million. Archer's plans to develop a hybrid military aircraft have struck a chord with investors.

Archer only opened its new Defence division in December to cater to the needs of the military. At the same time, Archer partnered with Anduril Industries to develop a vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) for military purposes, which, unlike Archer’s ‘Midnight’ air taxi, will be powered by a hybrid drive rather than a fully electric one. The hybrid aircraft is intended for a potential US Department of Defence programme. The US military took an early interest in Archer’s technology – and the US Air Force received a ‘Midnight’ eVTOL from Archer for testing purposes back in August.

Now, Archer has received 300 million dollars from leading institutional investors such as BlackRock to accelerate the development of a hybrid aircraft platform, as the opportunities in the defence sector are greater than expected. “I believe the opportunity for advanced vertical lift aircraft across defence appears to be substantially larger than I originally expected. As a result, we are raising additional capital to help us invest in critical capabilities like composites and batteries to help enable us to capture this opportunity and more,” said Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer.

The capital increase raises Archer’s total liquidity to around one billion dollars. That is because the company cannot spend the money as quickly as it receives new funds. After all, it was only in December that long-standing strategic partners Stellantis and United Airlines, as well as new institutional investors such as Wellington Management and the investment holding company 2PointZero from Abu Dhabi, invested a total of 430 million dollars in Archer.

In December, Archer completed its ARC production facility at Covington Municipal Airport in Georgia and plans to start production of its electric vertical take-off aircraft Midnight there soon. The factory was set up in close partnership with the automotive group Stellantis. Production is set to begin shortly and be scaled up to 650 aircraft per year by 2030. Archer also reports progress on Midnight’s FAA certification.

With the new financing round, the new military business unit and the progress in production and certification, Archer is setting a pace that European competitors cannot keep up with. On the contrary, the German air taxi startups Lilium and Volocopter are fighting insolvency and the European aviation group Airbus has just paused its air taxi project.

archer.com