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HyPoint and Piasecki reach $6.5M deal to develop hydrogen fuel cells systems for eVTOLs
A quick survey of many of the most highly valued electric vertical take-off and landing companies shows one thing in common: All of them are developing aircraft powered by batteries. But a growing suite of aviation companies, turned off by what they see as the energy density limitations of lithium-ion batteries, are turning instead to hydrogen fuel cells.
This is where HyPoint comes in. The two-year-old company has been working with a number of eVTOL companies, like ZeroAvia, on air-cooled hydrogen fuel cell systems that it says have triple the power-to-weight ratio of traditional liquid-cooled hydrogen fuel cells. Now, the fuel cell developer is adding Piasecki Aircraft Corporation to its list of partners.
The relationship between the two companies is being minted with a $6.5 million multiphase development agreement for the design and certification of hydrogen fuel cell systems. Through the partnership, HyPoint aims to deliver five full-scale, 650 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell systems for ground testing, demo flights and the certification process.
The goal is to create a system that has four times the energy density of existing lithium-ion batteries, double the specific power of existing hydrogen fuel cell systems, and that costs up to 50% less relative to the operative costs of turbine-powered rotorcraft. HyPoint unveiled a prototype of the new technology in March.
Image Credits: HyPoint (opens in a new window)
Through the deal, Piasecki will have exclusive license to the tech created as a result of the partnership. It aims to use the technology for use in its PA-890 manned helicopter, which it says would be the first hydrogen-powered helicopter on the market. HyPoint will maintain exclusive ownership of the fuel cell system.
The two companies said in a statement that they intend to make the system available to other eVTOL makers as well. “Piasecki is ready to support other eVTOL makers with Hypoint,” HyPoint CEO Alex Ivanenko told TechCrunch
The agreement started with a feasibility study, in which HyPoint created a very small-scale prototype to show proof-of-concept. Now, the company is in the design stage, at work building a single power module (each 650 kW system contains several), and an integration concept of the system in Piasecki’s aircraft. The single power module will be ready by the end of this year, with the first 650 kW system being delivered to Piasecki in 2023, and a commercially available product by around 2025.
The two companies have also developed a certification roadmap that outlines when HyPoint needs to deliver systems, to ensure that they’re ready for testing and demo flights with the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Our objective is to develop full-scale systems within two years to support on-aircraft certification testing in 2024 and fulfill existing customer orders for up to 325 units starting in 2025,” John Piasecki, CEO of Piasecki, said.
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Joby Aviation makes its public trading debut on the NYSE
Joby Aviation is now public, 12 years after JoeBen Bevirt founded the company at his ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. The air taxi developer began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the ticker symbol “JOBY,” after completing a merger with special purpose acquisition company Reinvent Technology Partners.
As of 10:00 AM ET, the price per share was at $11.01, up 9.8% from its prior-day closing amount.
Joby’s post-transaction valuation now stands at $4.5 billion, the largest in the industry. It also now has the highest cash balance. All told, Joby has around $1.6 billion in total capital to take its air taxi operations to commercialization in 2024. That includes $835 million of private-investment-in-public-equity, as well as more than $500 million of capital on the balance sheet.
RTP reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that around 63% of the 69 million ordinary shares were redeemed prior to the public trading debut, giving Joby access to $255 million out of the $690 million of cash held in trust from the blank-check firm.
We have been working for over a decade to get our technology ready for market and are excited to take this moment to celebrate our achievements so far. #nyse #experiencesquare #eVTOL @NYSE pic.twitter.com/XlpxXiA1Pa
— Joby Aviation (@jobyaviation) August 11, 2021
It’s a sizable amount, but creating an entirely new form of transportation is a capital-intensive business. Joby’s executive chairman Paul Sciarra told TechCrunch he thinks $1.6 billion will be enough to prepare the company for launch.
“We think that’s enough to execute on the things that matter over the next few years, and those are […] one, ensuring that we execute on the certification program; two, showing we can demonstrate our ability to repeatedly manufacturing these aircraft in a certifiable way; and then third and finally, the opportunity to lay the groundwork for commercial launch,” Sciarra said.
Joby is developing a five-seat electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, which it unveiled to much anticipation in February. The company, which has backing from Toyota and JetBlue, has released a slew of announcements in recent months as it geared up for the public listing.
“A lot of people talk about us as a secretive company,” Bevirt said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We’re not actually a secretive company, we just choose to do the work and then show our work, rather than talking about it and then doing it.”
From $RTP to $JOBY
Joby’s merger with blank-check firm Reinvent, headed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, was announced in February. The transaction includes a few provisions to ensure longer-term collaboration, including a lock-up on founder shares for up to five years, as well as vesting provision with earnout not realized until the price per share reaches $50 — a $30 billion market cap.
SPACs are not a new instrument for going public, but they have gained a widespread presence in the transportation space, particularly amongst eVTOL startups looking to secure amounts of capital. Archer Aviation was the first developer to announce it would merge with a blank-check firm, followed by Joby, Lilium and Vertical Aerospace. But there are signs that the investment bubble may be starting to deflate: late last month, Archer cut its valuation by $1 billion in a “strategic reset” of the transaction terms with Atlas Crest Investment Corp.
Such turbulence is not uncommon in markets populated by pre-revenue companies. But despite now being a public company — and having shareholders to answer to — Sciarra said Joby’s task remains unchanged. “We can’t control the markets,” he said. “[Joby] is a company that’s been executing quietly for a very long time on things that matter. I think it’s going to be incumbent upon us to do the same as we make this transition to a public company: tell folks what we’re going to do, and then go out and do them. That, quarter by quarter, is what builds credibility, what combats skepticism, and what gives investors and frankly, the broader public, confidence that this is a company that means what it says.”
One way to frame the fate of air taxis is whether they will be more like autonomous vehicles or electric vehicles. The AV space circa five years ago was filled with companies setting ambitious expectations about when true self-driving cars would be on the roads, only to have multiple companies collapse or sell under the weight of overshot expectations.
But Sciarra suggested that a better analogy to the eVTOL industry as it currently stands is the early days of electric vehicles. He pointed out that Joby’s aircraft is designed to conform to existing safety and certification standards, with a trained pilot onboard, similar to how helicopters and planes operate today. “We didn’t want to compound the technical risk of developing a new aircraft with the technical and regulatory risk of developing full autonomy from day one.”
“We think about our approach as a little bit more Tesla versus, say, Waymo,” he added.
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Lilium in talks with Brazilian airline for $1B order
German electric aircraft startup Lilium is negotiating the terms for a 220-aircraft, $1 billion order with one of Brazil’s largest domestic airlines, the companies said Monday. Should the deal with Azul move forward, it would mark the largest order in Lilium’s history and its first foray into South American markets.
“A term sheet has been signed and we will move toward a final agreement in the coming months,” a Lilium spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The 220 aircraft would fly as part of a new, co-branded airline network that would operate in Brazil. Should the two companies come to an agreement, Azul would operate and maintain the fleet of the flagship seven-seater aircraft, and Lilium would provide custom spare parts, including replacement batteries, and an aircraft health monitoring platform.
Deliveries would commence in 2025, a year after Lilium has said it plans to begin commercial operations in Europe and the United States. These timelines are dependent upon Lilium receiving key certification approvals from each country’s requisite aerospace regulator. Azul said in a statement it would “support Lilium with the necessary regulatory approval processes in Brazil” as part of the agreement.
Even if a deal is reached, it would likely be subject to Lilium hitting certain performance standards and benchmarks, similar to the conditions of Archer Aviation’s $1 billion order with United Airlines. Still, orders of this value are seen as a positive signal to markets and investors that an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft is more than smoke and mirrors.
Also like Archer, Lilium is planning on taking the SPAC route to going public. The company in March announced its intention to merge with Qell Acquisition Corp. and list on Nasdaq under ticker symbol “LILM.” SPACs have become a popular vehicle for public listing across the transportation sector, but they’ve become especially popular with capital-intensive eVTOL startups.
The merger may be necessary for the company’s continued operations. According to the German news website Welt, Lilium added a risk warning to its 2019 balance sheet noting that it will run out of money in December 2022 should the SPAC merger not be completed.
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Whisper Aero emerges from stealth to quiet drones and air taxis
The skies are on the cusp of getting busier — and louder — as drone delivery and electric vertical take-off and landing passenger aircraft startups move from moonshot to commercialization. One former NASA engineer and ex-director of Uber’s air taxi division is developing tech to ensure that more air traffic doesn’t equal more noise.
Mark Moore, who was most recently director of engineering at Uber Elevate until its acquisition by Joby Aviation, has a launched his own company called Whisper Aero. The startup, which came out of stealth this week, is aiming to designing an electric thruster it says will blend noise emitted from delivery drones and eVTOLs alike into background levels, making them nearly imperceptible to the human ear.
It’s a formidable challenge. Solving the noise problem comes down to more than simply cranking down the volume. Noise profiles are also characterized by other variables, like frequency. For example, helicopters have a main rotor and tail rotor that generate two separate frequencies, which makes them much more irritating to the human ear than if they were at a single frequency, Moore told TechCrunch in a recent interview.
Complicating the picture even further is that eVTOL companies are designing entirely new types of aircraft, ones that may generate different acoustic profiles than other rotorcraft (like helicopters). The U.S. Army recently undertook a research study confirming that eVTOL rotors generate more of a type of noise referred to as broadband, rather than tonal noise which is generated by helicopters. And as each eVTOL company is developing its own design, not all of the electric aircraft will generate the same level or kind of noise.
Whisper is designing its scalable product to be adoptable across the board.
Moore said the idea for the company had been fomenting for years. He and Whisper COO Ian Villa, who headed strategy and simulation at Elevate, realized years ago that noise (that is, less of it) was key to air taxis taking off.
“The thing that was abundantly clear was, noise matters most,” Villa said. “It is the hardest barrier to break through. And not enough of these developers were spending the time, the resources, the mindshare to really unlock that.”
Whisper CEO Mark Moore. Image Credits: Whisper Aero (opens in a new window)
Helicopters have mostly been able to get away with their terrible noise profile because they are used so infrequently. But eVTOL companies like Joby Aviation are envisioning far higher ride volumes. Moore is quick to point out that companies like Joby (which purchased Elevate at the end of 2020) are already developing aircraft that are many times quieter than helicopter, and are “a step in the right direction.”
“The question is, ‘is it enough of a step to get to significant adoption?’ And that’s what we’re focused on.”
Whisper is staying mum on the details of its thruster design. It has managed to attract around $7.5 million investment from firms like Lux Capital, Menlo Ventures, Kindred Ventures and Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition Ventures. It’s also aiming to convert its provisional patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office sometime next year.
From there, the startup envisions launching in the small drone market around 2023, before scaling progressively up to air taxis. Moore said the goal is to get the thrusters manufactured and in vehicles by the end of the decade. Should the first generation of eVTOL go to market in 2024 (as Archer Aviation and Joby have proposed), Whisper’s product could potentially appear in second generation eVTOL.
In the meantime, Whisper will continue testing and working out remaining technical challenges – least among which is how to manufacture the end product at a reasonable cost. Whisper is also preparing to conduct dynamic testing in a wind tunnel, in addition to the static tests it has undertaken at its Tennessee headquarters, some in partnership with the U.S. Air Force.
“It’s got to be quiet enough to blend into the background noise,” Moore said. “We know this and that’s the technology we’re developing.”
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Joby Aviation eyes Asia and Europe as early markets alongside North America
While electric vertical take-off and landing passenger aircraft startup Joby Aviation is targeting North America for its initial commercial launch, founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt expects the company to have an early presence in Asia and Europe as well.
Bevirt, who joined the TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 on June 9, didn’t give away the first location; although recent announcements suggest it is narrowed down to Los Angeles, Miami, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. But he did weigh in on what those first cities will look like.
“I imagine that we will have early markets in each of the three regions,” he said. “Our initial launch market will be in North America just for proximity to the nexus of where most of our team is currently. But there are incredible opportunities and cities around the world and we want to provide as much benefit to as many people as quickly as we possibly can. And so that’s why we’re so focused on scaling manufacturing.”
Joby Aviation is expected to begin construction on a 450,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, designed in conjunction with Toyota, later this year. The company has completed a pilot manufacturing facility already.
Joby, once a secretive startup, has had a far more public six months of late. The company reached a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company Reinvent Technology Partners, formed by well-known investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Michael Thompson and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. Hoffman also joined Bevirt at the TC Sessions: Mobility event.
Prior to its SPAC deal, Joby had gained attention and investors over the years as it developed its eVTOL. Toyota became an important backer and partner, leading a $620 million Series C round of funding in January 2020. Nearly a year later, Joby acquired Uber’s air taxi moonshot Elevate as part of a complex deal.
Today, Joby is focused on certification, which it has been working on with the FAA since 2018, as well manufacturing its eVTOL aircraft. The company is also starting to put the pieces together for how and where it will operate. And that’s adding to its size. In the past year, Joby has doubled its workforce, which now sits at about 800.
Earlier this month, Joby Aviation announced a partnership with REEF Technology, one of the country’s largest parking garage operators, and real estate acquisition company Neighborhood Property Group to build out its network of vertiports, with an initial focus on Los Angeles, Miami, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.
When 2024 arrives, Bevirt anticipates launching in one to two cities in that first year of operation.
“We do want to provide sufficient depth of coverage that consumers get to experience the transformative experience,” Bevirt said. “There have been cases where if a new service launches, and there’s not enough supply, consumers can be frustrated, right. And so we want to make sure we can, that we can really service, at least a portion of the demand and provide a really gratifying experience to our customers. I think that that’s the piece that we really care about as a company, is making customers into raving fans.”
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Beta Technologies adds $368 million in Series A funding for its electric aviation ecosystem
Electric aviation startup Beta Technologies closed a $368 million Series A funding round on Tuesday, with investments from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. The new capital is the second round of funding announced by the company this year, after the company raised $143 million in private capital in March.
The funding round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, with undisclosed additions from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, a $2 billion fund established in September 2019 to advance the development of sustainable technologies. The Climate Pledge fund has also made contributions toward electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, battery recycler Redwood Materials and ZeroAvia, a hydrogen fuel cell aviation company.
The company’s valuation is now at $1.4 billion, CNBC reported, putting it in a small circle of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) companies to have achieved valuations at over a billion dollars.
Unlike developers Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, which have each also achieved valuations over the billion-dollar mark, Beta is not primarily focused on air taxis. Instead, it’s been targeting defense applications, cargo delivery and medical logistics, as well as building out its network of rapid-charging systems in the northeast U.S. Its debut aircraft, the ALIA-250c, was built to serve these various solutions by being capable of carrying six people or a pilot and 1,500 pounds.
The Vermont-based startup has already scored major partnerships in all of these industries, including with United Therapeutics to transport synthetic organs for human transplant; UPS, which purchased 10 ALIA aircraft with the option of buying 140 more; and the U.S. Air Force.
The company has not entirely ignored passenger transportation, however, announcing last month a partnership with Blade Urban Air Mobility for five aircraft to be delivered in 2024.
Beta was the first company to be awarded airworthiness approval from the U.S. Air Force. The company expects to sign a contract in June with the Air Force to allow access to Beta’s aircraft and flight simulators in Washington, D.C. and Springfield, Ohio. However, it still must achieve certification with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The funds will be used to refine the ALIA’s electric propulsion system and controls, as well as to build out manufacturing space, including expanding its footprint in Vermont on land at the Burlington International Airport, the company said in a news release Tuesday.
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