Joby Aviation, the northern California-based electric aviation company, is the latest futuristic mobility company to go public through a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. To celebrate, the company launches the first images of its electric aircraft in flight.
Joby, which is supported by Toyota and recently acquired Uber’s flying taxi division, is merging with Reinvent Technology Partners, a “blank check” company run by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and founder of Zynga, Mark Pincus. The new company, which will have a post-monetary valuation of $ 6.6 billion, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
As part of the deal, Joby will receive $ 1.6 billion in cash, $ 690 million of which will come from money held by Reinvent and $ 835 million from private investors The Baupost Group, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research LLC and Baillie Gifford. Hoffman will join Joby’s council.
Joby is the brainchild of inventor JoeBen Bevirt, who founded the company in 2009 and operated it in relative obscurity. In 2018, Joby announced that he had raised an astonishing $ 100 million from a variety of investors, including the venture capital arms of Intel, Toyota and JetBlue. The money helped finance the development of the company’s air taxi prototype, which is conducting test flights at Joby’s private airfield in northern California. Bevirt helps to run an incubator outside Santa Cruz that has been described as an almost commune.
The company closed in a massive $ 590 million round of venture capital financing. Joby also announced that he was teaming up with former Toyota investor to launch an air taxi service using his new aircraft.
Unlike dozens of other companies that are currently building electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL), Joby has kept much of his project a secret. Today’s footage is the first time Joby’s vehicle has been seen in flight. The all-electric aircraft has six rotors and five seats, including the pilot.
The video shows him taking off vertically, like a helicopter, and then shifting forward using tilt rotors. Joby says he can reach a top speed of 320 km / h, travel 150 miles on a single charge and be 100 times quieter than a conventional aircraft. The company says it intends to have an expanded air taxi service in operation by 2024.
According to the company’s presentation to investors, Joby expects each aircraft to cost $ 1.3 million to manufacture, with the potential to cut that figure in half in the future. Joby also projects that each aircraft will generate $ 2.2 million in revenue. This assumes that all aircraft will operate 4,500 hours per year with an average of 2.3 passengers per trip.
(As noted by aviation writer Michael Travierso on Twitter, this represents an exponential increase in relation to the number of hours that the average Cessna aircraft flies in a busy air club every year. Electric aircraft should require less maintenance than their gas-powered counterparts.)
Of course, many companies – Joby included – have promised new revolutionary planes for years, just to miss deadlines or fail to deliver on previous promises. Kitty Hawk, the flying car venture supported by Google co-founder Larry Page, had to reorganize amid reports of crashes, battery fires and returned deposits. Another startup, Zunum, is fighting a tough legal dispute with its former investor, Boeing. And last year, Lilium Jet from Germany had a prototype on fire recently.
Joby is not the only eVTOL company to go public via SPAC. Archer Aviation, another electric flight company, plans to merge with Atlas Crest Investment Corp, a blank check company, and announced that it would launch an air taxi service in Los Angeles by 2024.