Vertical Aerospace announces $50 million in new funding as part of $180 million transaction, advancing its Flightpath 2030 Strategy 

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced the sign­ing of a term sheet among the Com­pa­ny, its major­i­ty share­hold­er Stephen Fitz­patrick, and its pri­ma­ry cred­i­tor Mudrick Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, secur­ing a com­mit­ment to $50 mil­lion in new fund­ing.

Announced today (Mon­day), the amount will sup­port the company’s new­ly launched Flight­path 2030 Strat­e­gy which includes the ongo­ing devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the VX4 eVTOL air­craft.

The term sheet includes:

• $50 mil­lion fund­ing com­mit­ment by Mudrick Cap­i­tal: com­mit­ment includes $25 mil­lion in upfront fund­ing and an addi­tion­al $25 mil­lion back­stop that will be reduced by any amounts raised from third par­ties. The term sheet includes the option for Stephen Fitz­patrick to invest a fur­ther $25 mil­lion on the same terms
• Bal­ance sheet strength­en­ing: approx­i­mate­ly $130 mil­lion of con­vert­ible notes (50% of the out­stand­ing amount) will be con­vert­ed into equi­ty at $2.75 per share, sub­stan­tial­ly reduc­ing Vertical’s debt and sig­nif­i­cant­ly delever­ag­ing the company’s bal­ance sheet, enhanc­ing its finan­cial posi­tion
• Greater cer­tain­ty for future investors: by fix­ing the con­ver­sion price for the remain­ing out­stand­ing con­vert­ible notes at $3.50 per share, Vertical’s future fundrais­ing plans will be sup­port­ed
• Remain­ing loan repay­ment date extend­ed to Decem­ber 2028: exten­sion ofterm pro­vides fur­ther secu­ri­ty through Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme
• Renewed com­mit­ment to the UK: Ver­ti­cal will con­tin­ue to oper­ate from its UK head­quar­ters, main­tain­ing its brand iden­ti­ty and focus on inno­va­tion

As part of the agree­ment, Ver­ti­cal Aerospace’s founder, Stephen Fitz­patrick, will remain on the board, con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide strate­gic direc­tion as the com­pa­ny pro­gress­es through its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme.

Com­ment­ing on the announce­ment, Fitz­patrick said: “It is great to be able to announce this new fund­ing today. We have been work­ing hard to find a way to sup­port the com­pa­ny in the short term, but also set us up for long term suc­cess.

“The addi­tion­al equi­ty and stronger bal­ance sheet will enable us to fund the next phase of our devel­op­ment pro­gramme and deliv­er on our mis­sion to bring the amaz­ing elec­tric air­craft to the skies. 

He added: “This com­pre­hen­sive deal — along­side the recent pilot­ed flight cam­paign and launch of the Flightpath2030 strat­e­gy — means Ver­ti­cal is posi­tioned to be a win­ner in one of the 21st cen­tu­ry’s most excit­ing tech­nolo­gies. 

“The UK has been at the fore­front of the aero­space indus­try for the last hun­dred years. Avi­a­tion is one of the hard­est sec­tors to decar­bonise but ambi­tious British com­pa­nies like Ver­ti­cal are lead­ing the world in pio­neer­ing zero emis­sions elec­tric air­craft.”

Vertical’s pilot­ed flight test pro­gramme is pro­gress­ing fur­ther toward cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, recent­ly achiev­ing unteth­ered, pilot­ed thrust­borne flight in Phase 2 of test­ing.

With the VX4 pro­to­type per­form­ing beyond expec­ta­tions, the com­pa­ny is now work­ing with the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty to secure per­mits to move into Phase 3 — wing­borne flight tests, which is a crit­i­cal step toward cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. 

The par­ties have signed a non-bind­ing term sheet reflect­ing the mate­r­i­al terms of the agree­ment in prin­ci­ple.

It remains sub­ject to imple­men­ta­tion and exe­cu­tion of final trans­ac­tion agree­ments, as well as share­hold­er approval of amend­ments to Vertical’s arti­cles of asso­ci­a­tion. Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion can be found in the Company’s Form 6‑K fur­nished to the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion.

Jason Mudrick, Founder and Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Mudrick Cap­i­tal, said: “This agree­ment under­scores our appre­ci­a­tion of Ver­ti­cal Aerospace’s posi­tion in the eVTOL sec­tor and a team that has demon­strat­ed its abil­i­ty to deliv­er ground­break­ing solu­tions for the future of sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.

“By com­mit­ting up to $50 mil­lion to the busi­ness and con­vert­ing sub­stan­tial debt into equi­ty, we’re sup­port­ing a com­pa­ny, its lead­er­ship team and part­ners, as Ver­ti­cal brings the safest and most ver­sa­tile air­craft to mar­ket.”

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, added: “This fund­ing agree­ment under­scores the strong con­fi­dence of our investors in our Flight­path 2030 Strat­e­gy and our ambi­tion to lead the glob­al eVTOL mar­ket.

“By address­ing our more imme­di­ate cap­i­tal needs and posi­tion­ing us well to secure fund­ing for the long-term, we can focus on advanc­ing our pilot­ed flight test pro­gramme and bring­ing the VX4 to mar­ket.”

Ver­ti­cal has approx­i­mate­ly 1,500 pre-orders of its VX4 air­craft, with cus­tomers across four con­ti­nents. They include Amer­i­can Air­lines, Japan Air­lines, GOL and Bris­tow. Head­quar­tered in Bris­tol, the epi­cen­tre of the UK’s aero­space indus­try, Ver­ti­cal was found­ed in 2016 by Stephen Fitz­patrick, founder of the OVO Group, Europe’s largest inde­pen­dent ener­gy retail­er.