Archer Raises Capital To Exploit Military Demand for VTOL Aircraft

Archer Aviation has raised a further $300 million, boosting available cash to complete type certification of its Midnight eVTOL aircraft. On February 11, the company announced that backing from institutional investors, including BlackRock, has taken its liquidity tally to around $1 billion.

The new capital was raised through an offering of 35.5 million Class A shares in Archer at a price of $8.50. This raised $301.75 million, before deductions for fees and expenses.

According to Archer founder and CEO Adam Goldstein, the main motivation for raising more funds is to take advantage of what he expects to be a surge in demand for military use of eVTOL vehicles. In December, the California-based company launched a defense division that will focus on developing a hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft that is expected to have greater range and payload than the four-passenger Midnight air taxi. 

In August 2024, Archer delivered an example of the Midnight aircraft to the U.S. Air Force for evaluation under a $142 million contract from the service’s Afwerx unit as part of its Agility Prime program. The assessment included use of the all-electric vehicle for missions including casualty evacuation, cargo deliveries, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flights.

“I believe the opportunity for advanced vertical lift aircraft across defense appears to be substantially larger than I originally expected,” Goldstein commented. “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.”

Less than a month into the new U.S. administration, it remains unclear to what extent the government will continue to back work on advanced air mobility capability. Last week, defense secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon town hall meeting he intends to overhaul the military acquisitions process and modernize the defense industrial base. On February 9, President Trump told Fox News that the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, will soon focus its attention on the Department of Defense, where he said he expected to uncover “hundreds of billions of fraud and abuse.”

Doubts Raised over Lilium’s Survival

On the other side of the Atlantic, there appear to be doubts over how a group of private investors will complete their takeover of German eVTOL aircraft developer Lilium. Under a process agreed through an insolvency court in late December, the transfer of assets was supposed to have been completed by the end of January. A spokesman for the newly incorporated Lilium Aerospace acknowledged that employees who had returned to work had not been paid “due to technical issues.”

Meanwhile, court-appointed insolvency administrator Tobias Wahl is seeking fresh investors for another German eVTOL manufacturer, Volocopter. This process began on December 26 and is expected to run for three months, with the company still reporting ongoing development work on its two-seat VoloCity aircraft.

In California, Overair appears to have given up on efforts to find new backers after South Korean industrial group Hanwha discontinued financial support for its Butterfly eVTOL last year. According to sources close to the situation, speaking to AIN on condition of anonymity, the company’s assets and intellectual property were listed for auction in January.