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Joby Aviation confirms acquisition of Uber Elevate

Joby Avi­a­tion has announced that Uber has agreed to invest $75 mil­lion into the com­pa­ny, as part of a broad­er trans­ac­tion which involves the acqui­si­tion of Uber Ele­vate.

The finan­cial terms of the acqui­si­tion were not dis­closed and the trans­ac­tion is expect­ed to close in ear­ly Q1 2021, sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry review and cus­tom­ary clos­ing con­di­tions. 

It ends spec­u­la­tion about a pos­si­ble deal, which sur­faced last week, and fol­lows on from Joby also announc­ing today (Tues­day) that it has signed a long-term sup­pli­er agree­ment with Toray Advanced Com­pos­ites.

Under the terms of this week’s deal, both com­pa­nies have also agreed to inte­grate their respec­tive ser­vices into each other’s apps, enabling seam­less inte­gra­tion between ground and air trav­el for future cus­tomers. 

This lat­est invest­ment from Uber is in addi­tion to pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed $50 mil­lion which was made as part of Joby’s Series C financ­ing round in Jan­u­ary 2020. It brings Uber’s all-time total invest­ment into Joby to $125 mil­lion, while Joby Aviation’s total fund­ing, includ­ing pre­vi­ous rounds, is now at $820 mil­lion.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby Avi­a­tion, said: “We were proud to part­ner with Uber Ele­vate last year and we’re even proud­er to be wel­com­ing them into the Joby team today, while deep­en­ing our coop­er­a­tion with Uber.

“The team at Uber Ele­vate has not only played an impor­tant role in our indus­try, they have also devel­oped a remark­able set of soft­ware tools that build on more than a decade of expe­ri­ence enabling on-demand mobil­i­ty.

“These tools and new team mem­bers will be invalu­able to us as we accel­er­ate our plans for com­mer­cial launch.”

Estab­lished in 2016, Uber Ele­vate has played an impor­tant role in lay­ing the ground­work for the aer­i­al rideshar­ing mar­ket by bring­ing togeth­er reg­u­la­tors, civic lead­ers, real estate devel­op­ers and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies around a shared vision for the future of air trav­el.

Their soft­ware tools enabling mar­ket selec­tion, demand sim­u­la­tion and mul­ti-modal oper­a­tions are at the cen­ter of their work, and form the basis of this future-focused deal.

Dara Khos­row­shahi, CEO, of Uber, added: “Advanced air mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to be expo­nen­tial­ly pos­i­tive for the envi­ron­ment and future gen­er­a­tions. 

“This deal allows us to deep­en our part­ner­ship with Joby, the clear leader in this field, to accel­er­ate the path to mar­ket for these tech­nolo­gies.

“We’re excit­ed for their trans­for­ma­tion­al mobil­i­ty solu­tion to become avail­able to the mil­lions of cus­tomers who rely on our plat­form.” 

Joby’s air­craft will form part of its afford­able, qui­et and clean trans­porta­tion ser­vice, using its eVTOL air­craft which it has spent the last decade devel­op­ing. With a range of up to 150 miles and a top speed of 200 mph, the com­pa­ny says its vehi­cle and ser­vice has the poten­tial to make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence to the lives of trav­ellers.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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