Lift HEXA eVTOL Signs Deal with Warren Buffet-Backed Marubeni Corporation

On occa­sions, an impor­tant news sto­ry gets lost amidst all the media hul­la­baloo and this occurred to Lift Aircraft’s deal with Marubeni last week where the tum­ble­weed blew, a pin could be heard, and silence was gold­en. This “mean­ing­ful sto­ry” first appeared on August 9th as a press release on Lift’s web­site. The news is impor­tant for sev­er­al rea­sons.

First, Lift, best known for its HEXA eVTOL, has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with Japan’s Marubeni Cor­po­ra­tion, a com­pa­ny referred to as a “Sogo Shosha”. This Japan­ese phrase means “a very large com­pa­ny that trades inter­na­tion­al­ly in a wide range of goods and ser­vices.”

Not only is it a top and pres­ti­gious cor­po­ra­tion, but to give it more ele­vat­ed stand­ing, world famous stock mar­ket investor, War­ren Buf­fett, viewed as one of the most suc­cess­ful glob­al stock pick­ers via his Berk­shire Hath­away fund, now owns 8 per­cent of Marubeni’s shares. So, for Lift to sign a deal with one of Japan’s lead­ing com­pa­nies, alright only an MOU to date, is a tremen­dous break­through.

Please Read CNBC arti­cle about War­ren Buf­fett and his asso­ci­a­tion with Marubeni and Watch accom­pa­ny­ing video. There is a brief men­tion of the HEXA.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/why-warren-buffett-is-keen-on-japans-versions-of-berkshire-hathaway.html

Marubeni intends to part­ner with Lift to com­mer­cialise the HEXA per­son­al eVTOL air­craft in Japan includ­ing joint­ly under­tak­ing mar­ket research, reg­u­la­to­ry engage­ment, and a pre-order option of up to 100 craft sub­ject to approval by the Japan­ese Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB). 

The release states, “The two com­pa­nies are in the process of gain­ing per­mis­sion from JCAB to offer train­ing and pay-per-flight rentals of HEXA, which is clas­si­fied as an ultra­light vehi­cle under FAA reg­u­la­tions, so does not require a pilot’s license or type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to fly.”

Matt Chasen, CEO of Lift Air­craft, remarked, “We are thrilled to join forces with Marubeni Cor­po­ra­tion. The company’s deep indus­try knowl­edge, strong oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties, and com­mit­ment to advanc­ing the eVTOL indus­try makes them an ide­al part­ner.” 

Priced at USD495,000 (this is expen­sive com­pared to its rivals), HEXA is a one-manned pilot­ed craft, ultra­light, easy to fly (takes around 40 min­utes to learn), with 18 inde­pen­dent dif­fer­ent elec­tric motors and rotors, capa­ble of land­ing on both land and water and, claim the com­pa­ny, is excep­tion­al­ly safe.

Please Watch Videos

VIDEO: LIFT Aircraft’s HEXA per­forms first-ever pilot­ed eVTOL flight demon­stra­tion in Japan

Dur­ing March, in the Japan­ese cities of Osa­ka and Ehime (Niihama and Imabari), Lift and Marubeni col­lab­o­rat­ed to per­form pub­lic tri­al demon­stra­tions of the first manned flights of any eVTOL air­craft in Japan which led to August’s MOU.

Sec­ond, this deal con­firms that HEXA, so long as the part­ner­ship proves suc­cess­ful, will fly at the Osa­ka Expo in 2025, giv­en Marubeni is one of the Japan­ese com­pa­nies select­ed by the organ­is­ers to oper­ate eVTOL air­craft con­nect­ing between two ports — the one inside the Expo venue, to anoth­er out­side. So, joyrides for indi­vid­u­als rather than air taxi pas­sen­gers.

For HEXA, the future looks bright.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.liftaircraft.com/aircraft

https://www.marubeni.com/en/

(Images: Lift)