BETA Technologies secures $169 million loan from Export-Import Bank of the United States, to fund its final production facility

The Export-Import Bank of the Unit­ed States (EXIM) has approved a his­toric $169 mil­lion dol­lar loan to BETA Tech­nolo­gies, which will allow the com­pa­ny to finance a net-zero Final Assem­bly Pro­duc­tion Facil­i­ty of its ALIA eVTOL air­craft.

The trans­ac­tion is the sec­ond deal autho­rized under EXIM’s Make More in Amer­i­ca ini­tia­tive and is esti­mat­ed to sup­port 400 clean ener­gy jobs in Ver­mont.

EXIM Pres­i­dent and Chair Reta Jo Lewis was joined by Kyle Clark, founder and CEO of BETA Tech­nolo­gies, as she announced the transaction’s approval dur­ing an “Invest in Amer­i­ca” ses­sion at the 2023 Asia-Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion (APEC) Forum.

The trans­ac­tion was also high­light­ed as part of a White House fact­sheet on the 2023 APEC Forum.

Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO, said: “We are excit­ed to part­ner with the Export-Import Bank of the Unit­ed States as part of its new Make More in Amer­i­ca ini­tia­tive.

“This is not only a vote of con­fi­dence in the work BETA is doing to elec­tri­fy avi­a­tion, it will also help us cre­ate hun­dreds of well paid, cli­mate-focused jobs in the com­ing years as we move toward large scale man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion of our elec­tric air­craft.

“Amer­i­ca has a long his­to­ry of lead­er­ship in aero­space, and EXIM’s sup­port enables us to do our part to add to that lega­cy for the future.”

The loan was approved in part because of BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ high growth poten­tial, includ­ing cur­rent and poten­tial cus­tomers in APEC and IPEF economies such as New Zealand, India, Japan, and Cana­da.

BETA is devel­op­ing an inte­grat­ed elec­tric trans­porta­tion sys­tem, man­u­fac­tur­ing all-elec­tric air­craft, mul­ti­modal charg­ing infra­struc­ture to enable it, and train­ing pro­grams to teach next-gen­er­a­tion pilots and air­craft main­tain­ers. In addi­tion to Ver­mont, BETA has US offices in Ohio, Mary­land, New York and North Car­oli­na, as well as a Cana­di­an facil­i­ty in Mon­tre­al.

To date, BETA has flown more than 27,000 nau­ti­cal miles with its pilot­ed elec­tric air­craft pro­to­types, includ­ing three thou­sand-mile-plus trips and reg­u­lar test flights.

Lewis said: “We are thrilled that the sec­ond trans­ac­tion autho­rized under EXIM’s Make More in Amer­i­ca ini­tia­tive is in sup­port of BETA Tech­nolo­gies, an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny lead­ing the world in clean ener­gy tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment and inno­va­tion.

“This trans­ac­tion advances sev­er­al key Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion pri­or­i­ties, from bol­ster­ing domes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ing and sup­port­ing good-pay­ing jobs to advanc­ing cut­ting-edge renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies that can change the future of air trav­el.

“We are proud to play a role in this project and are eager to con­tin­ue advanc­ing trans­ac­tions that will have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on domes­tic sup­ply chains and fur­ther­ing the glob­al ener­gy tran­si­tion.”

The Make More in Amer­i­ca ini­tia­tive is a tool designed to unlock financ­ing for Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing, strength­en America’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness, close crit­i­cal sup­ply chain gaps, and sup­port Amer­i­can jobs.

The ini­tia­tive makes EXIM’s exist­ing medi­um- and long-term loans and loan guar­an­tees avail­able for export-ori­ent­ed domes­tic man­u­fac­tur­ing projects as part of the Biden-Har­ris Administration’s whole-of-gov­ern­ment efforts to strength­en the resilien­cy and secu­ri­ty of America’s sup­ply chains, fol­low­ing the enact­ment of Exec­u­tive Order 14017.