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Skyports raises $23 million in first close of Series B funding round to help provide take-off and landing infrastructure

Sky­ports has raised $23 mil­lion in the first close of its Series B fund­ing round from a com­bi­na­tion of new and exist­ing investors, which will enable it to con­sol­i­date its progress in the advanced air mobil­i­ty infra­struc­ture and drone oper­a­tions mar­kets. 

All exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al share­hold­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the round, includ­ing Deutsche Bahn Dig­i­tal Ven­tures, Groupe ADP, Solar Ven­tus, Ire­landia and Lev­i­tate Cap­i­tal, with some mate­ri­al­ly increas­ing their stake. 

These investors were joined by Japan­ese con­glom­er­ate Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion, glob­al indus­tri­al prop­er­ty group Good­man Group, Ital­ian air­port plat­form 2i Aero­por­ti, backed by Ardian’s Infra­struc­ture Fund and F2i Ital­ian Infra­struc­ture Fund, and US based VC firm Green­Point.    

Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion will take a seat on the Sky­ports board and Ken Allen, CEO of DHL eCom­merce who joins the board as an inde­pen­dent non-exec­u­tive direc­tor. 

The new cap­i­tal and the siz­able bal­ance sheets of the investors enables Sky­ports to accel­er­ate its work with the world’s lead­ing elec­tric air taxi man­u­fac­tur­ers and oper­a­tors, pro­vid­ing take-off and land­ing infra­struc­ture in key launch mar­kets. 

Sky­ports will also mate­ri­al­ly scale its Drone Ser­vices oper­a­tions in new and exist­ing mar­kets, build­ing on active oper­a­tions in the UK, Europe and Asia. 

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports said: “This is anoth­er great mile­stone for Sky­ports as we con­tin­ue our jour­ney to be the lead­ing ver­ti­port own­er and oper­a­tor in the world.  

“The sup­port of our orig­i­nal investors who have deep expe­ri­ence in avi­a­tion and infra­struc­ture and the addi­tion of new cap­i­tal from world class com­pa­nies with a glob­al foot­print enables us to build the air taxi eco-sys­tem along­side our best-in-class vehi­cle part­ners for ini­tial oper­a­tions with­in a cou­ple of years.  

“Our grow­ing Drone Ser­vices busi­ness puts us ahead of the curve with tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, reg­u­la­tion and oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence whilst reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions by using drones for a broad range of cus­tomers.”

Ear­li­er in March, Sky­ports was part of a con­sor­tium formed by Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, which will devel­op a Con­cept of Oper­a­tions for ser­vices between Mia­mi Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (MIA) and the Mia­mi Beach Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

Eve and Sky­ports are also work­ing togeth­er to sup­port the devel­op­ment of a new Con­cept of Oper­a­tions (CONOPS) for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty for the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau to enable AAM oper­a­tion in Japan. Oth­er part­ners include aero­space indus­try trad­ing com­pa­ny Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion and Japan Air­lines (JAL).

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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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