Archer to Acquire Boeing’s Wisk, Insitu and SkyGrid in Major Aerospace Deal

The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny and Archer Avi­a­tion Inc. have announced the sign­ing of defin­i­tive agree­ments in which Archer will acquire Boe­ing’s Wisk Aero, Sky­Grid and Insi­tu sub­sidiaries. The deal will com­bine com­ple­men­tary capa­bil­i­ties devel­oped over decades in auton­o­my, elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft, and unmanned air­craft sys­tems (UAS) – cre­at­ing a ground­break­ing end-to-end phys­i­cal AI plat­form for aero­space and defense.

Wisk, Sky­Grid and Insi­tu have pio­neered and incu­bat­ed core autonomous flight tech­nolo­gies for the future that, in com­bi­na­tion with Archer’s air taxi, UAS and AI tech­nolo­gies, will bring new and inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to the mar­ket. Wisk brings expe­ri­ence devel­op­ing autonomous eVTOL air­craft and has con­duct­ed more than 1,700 flight tests across six gen­er­a­tions of air­craft. Its tech­nol­o­gy port­fo­lio includes flight-con­trol com­put­ers, sen­sor sys­tems and radar designed for autonomous flight and poten­tial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in civ­il and defense appli­ca­tions.

This posi­tions Archer to deliv­er an end-to-end phys­i­cal AI plat­form across com­mer­cial aero­space, defense and air traf­fic man­age­ment that can lead the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion.

Archer’s Founder and CEO, Adam Gold­stein said, “This is a water­shed moment for Archer and the future of phys­i­cal AI in aero­space and defense. This is the next big step for­ward in becom­ing a diver­si­fied plat­form, rapid­ly grow­ing our rev­enue base and bring­ing scale to our busi­ness.”

The trans­ac­tion will also include Boe­ing tak­ing a stake in Archer and enter­ing into a col­lab­o­ra­tion and tech­nol­o­gy-shar­ing agree­ment. Under the arrange­ment, Boe­ing will retain access to Wisk’s core autonomous flight tech­nol­o­gy for use in its cur­rent and future com­mer­cial and defense air­craft. The trans­ac­tion allows Boe­ing to retain strate­gic upside through its stake in Archer and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly focus cur­rent and future invest­ments into Boe­ing’s core busi­ness­es.

“This trans­ac­tion is a win-win for Boe­ing and Archer,” said Bri­an Yutko, Boe­ing vice pres­i­dent, Com­mer­cial Air­planes Prod­uct Devel­op­ment. “It allows Wisk, Sky­Grid and Insi­tu to accel­er­ate capa­bil­i­ty devel­op­ment and time to mar­ket while ensur­ing Boe­ing cap­i­tal­izes on its invest­ments in these tech­nolo­gies over the past two decades through con­tin­ued devel­op­ment in our core busi­ness­es. Hav­ing worked with the incred­i­ble teams in these com­pa­nies first­hand, it’s clear this trans­ac­tion will cre­ate an indus­try leader in the advanced avi­a­tion mar­ket. We look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Archer to dri­ve con­tin­ued inno­va­tion in aero­space, defense and auton­o­my.”

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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