Odys Aviation Secures Series A Funding to Accelerate Full-Scale Flight Testing and Global Operational Launch ahead of busy year

Odys Avi­a­tion has the closed a $26M Series A fund­ing round, which will sup­port strate­gic team expan­sion and flight test­ing in the US ahead of cus­tomer proof of oper­a­tions in ear­ly 2026.

In a press release issued yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), this lat­est announce­ment builds on major tech­ni­cal mile­stones which Odys achieved in 2024 and 2025 and takes the com­pa­ny into the next phase of exe­cu­tion,

The Series A fol­lows suc­cess­ful inte­gra­tion and test­ing of Odys Aviation’s hybrid propul­sion sys­tem and the com­ple­tion of key design and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mile­stones under the JARUS/SORA 2.5 frame­work.

The company’s ongo­ing U.S. flight test cam­paign will val­i­date full-scale flight per­for­mance and auton­o­my sys­tems, lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a seam­less tran­si­tion to com­mer­cial demon­stra­tion in Q1 2026.

James Dor­ris, CEO of Odys Avi­a­tion, said: “This fund­ing marks a crit­i­cal inflec­tion point for Odys. We’ve already proven the tech­nol­o­gy and per­for­mance poten­tial of hybrid-elec­tric VTOL. Now, our focus shifts to scal­ing oper­a­tions, bring­ing togeth­er the right peo­ple, sys­tems and part­ners to demon­strate what a full AAM ecosys­tem looks like in prac­tice, not the­o­ry.”

Odys Aviation’s glob­al Proof of Con­cept pro­grams will rep­re­sent the world’s first end-to-end oper­a­tional demon­stra­tions of a dual-use VTOL sys­tem, link­ing civ­il, com­mer­cial, and defense appli­ca­tions in a sin­gle scal­able mod­el.

The project will show­case how the company’s hybrid archi­tec­ture enables both sus­tain­able and prac­ti­cal deploy­ment at long range and high pay­load capac­i­ty, bridg­ing the gap between con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion and emerg­ing AAM ser­vices.

These pro­grams will build on the company’s already-proven track record with the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Defense, help­ing to sup­port gaps in UAV avail­abil­i­ty, afford­abil­i­ty and scal­a­bil­i­ty with 14 award­ed con­tracts across three branch­es award­ed to date val­ued at more than $11 mil­lion.

Justin Hamil­ton, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Nova Thresh­old, said: “Odys is posi­tioned to meet strong cus­tomer demand for longer-range, high-effi­cien­cy region­al mobil­i­ty. Their inno­v­a­tive air­craft and hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem have demon­strat­ed out­stand­ing per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty.

“By tar­get­ing unmanned car­go and defense appli­ca­tions with­in exist­ing U.S. and inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions, Odys is cre­at­ing a faster, more cred­i­ble path to mar­ket readi­ness and long-term prof­itabil­i­ty, set­ting the stage for future manned oper­a­tions.”

With this new cap­i­tal, Odys will make strate­gic hires across engi­neer­ing, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and oper­a­tions, expand­ing its U.S. and inter­na­tion­al pres­ence as it scales.

The com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to attract inter­est from both com­mer­cial air­lines and gov­ern­ment part­ners seek­ing sus­tain­able long- range con­nec­tiv­i­ty and dual-use logis­tics capa­bil­i­ties.

Andy Apple, VP of Strat­e­gy for Odys Avi­a­tion, added: “What sets Odys apart is our abil­i­ty to exe­cute beyond a sin­gle air­craft or flight. We’re devel­op­ing the infra­struc­ture, auton­o­my and oper­a­tional frame­works need­ed to inte­grate AAM into real-world air­space and reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ments. This fund­ing ensures we can deliv­er on that vision for our cus­tomers and part­ners.”