PteroDynamics “raises USD7.5 million seed round to expand Transwing VTOL”

U.S‑based Ptero­Dy­nam­ics, an air­craft design and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny that devel­ops VTOL air­craft, announced this week the close of a USD7.5 mil­lion seed round, reports a press release. The round was co-led by exist­ing investor Kairos Ven­tures and new investors Lavrock Ven­tures and CS Ven­ture Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund.

Found­ed in 2017 by Dr. Val Petrov, Ptero­Dy­nam­ics “has devel­oped a rev­o­lu­tion­ary and patent­ed design for VTOL air­craft called Tran­swing that folds/unfolds its wings dur­ing flight to tran­si­tion between rotor wing and fixed wing con­fig­u­ra­tions,” explains the release. “The result of this design is that Tran­swing air­craft have a small­er ground foot­print while being able to fly far­ther, faster, longer, and/or car­ry heav­ier pay­loads than oth­er VTOL air­craft of a sim­i­lar size and weight. This is crit­i­cal for every­thing from drone deliv­ery to air taxis with exten­sive gov­ern­ment, defense, indus­tri­al, and com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions as well.”

The cap­i­tal raised will sup­port Ptero­Dy­nam­ics’ plans to devel­op larg­er Tran­swing air­craft vari­ants and enter the com­mer­cial sec­tor.

Dr Val Petrov

Dr. Petrov, Founder and Chair­man, com­ment­ed, “This is an excit­ing mile­stone for us. We look for­ward to our con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with Kairos along with our new investors Lavrock and CS, to bring inno­va­tion that will expand the appli­ca­tions of our Tran­swing air­craft.” Todd Thom­son, CFO of Kairos Ven­tures, said, “As long-stand­ing sup­port­ers of Ptero­Dy­nam­ics, we are look­ing for­ward to sup­port­ing the next excit­ing phase of growth.”

Quin­ten Stevens, Gen­er­al Part­ner at CS Ven­ture Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund, added, “We invest in trans­for­ma­tive tech­nolo­gies and believe the company’s Tran­swing VTOL air­craft tech­nol­o­gy is fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing VTOLs capa­bil­i­ties with its unique con­fig­u­ra­tion that has numer­ous appli­ca­tions in both the com­mer­cial and defence mar­kets.”

Ptero­Dy­nam­ics has already secured an ‘Oth­er Trans­ac­tion Author­i­ty (OTA)’ con­tract with the U.S Navy’s Naval Air War­fare Cen­tre Air­craft Divi­sion (NAWCAD) to sup­ply three Tran­swing air­craft for its Blue Water Mar­itime Logis­tics UAS pro­gram. Addi­tion­al­ly, the com­pa­ny has been award­ed four SBIR/STTR con­tracts with the Air Force and has sold mul­ti­ple Tran­swing air­craft for test and eval­u­a­tion to var­i­ous U.S. defence con­trac­tors.

Matthew Graczyk, CEO and Board Direc­tor of Ptero­Dy­nam­ics, remarked, “The supe­ri­or capa­bil­i­ties of our Tran­swing air­craft plat­form for cer­tain mis­sions offers sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial and defence applic­a­bil­i­ty. Our goal is clear: we want to be the estab­lished leader in VTOL air­craft for long-range and long-endurance mis­sions in both the pub­lic and defence sec­tors. This invest­ment will accel­er­ate our abil­i­ty to exe­cute on that goal.”

Back­ground

Ptero­Dy­nam­ics is a ven­ture-backed air­craft design and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny that has devel­oped a nov­el ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (VTOL) air­craft design called Tran­swing® that folds its wings dur­ing flight to tran­si­tion between rotor­craft and fixed-wing con­fig­u­ra­tions. Pro­tect­ed by four issued and 14 pend­ing patents in the U.S. and ten inter­na­tion­al juris­dic­tions, Tran­swing air­craft have improved con­trol­la­bil­i­ty in take­off and land­ing, require typ­i­cal­ly 1/3 of the ground foot­print, and can fly faster and far­ther and car­ry more pay­load than com­pet­i­tive designs of a sim­i­lar size and weight.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.pterodynamics.com/

https://www.kairosventures.com/pterodynamics/

(All images: Ptero­Dy­nam­ics)