Reliable Robotics Raises Additional $115m as Valuation Exceeds $1bn

US autonomous avi­a­tion devel­op­er Reli­able Robot­ics has raised an addi­tion­al $115 mil­lion, bring­ing its Series D fund­ing round to $275 mil­lion and push­ing its val­u­a­tion above $1 bil­lion.

The new cap­i­tal expands a pre­vi­ous­ly announced $160 mil­lion round and includes a $25 mil­lion term loan from Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank. Nim­ble Part­ners led the lat­est invest­ment, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from new investors includ­ing Gideon Cap­i­tal, Rock­Creek, Geek Ven­tures, Gold Hill Cap­i­tal and Spark­wave Cap­i­tal, along­side return­ing investor Island Green Part­ners.

The lat­est fund­ing brings Reliable’s total equi­ty cap­i­tal raised to more than $380 mil­lion, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny. Its work­force now exceeds 250 peo­ple, with fur­ther recruit­ment planned as it advances cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and scales pro­duc­tion.

Reli­able said the fund­ing would sup­port expan­sion of its air­craft fleet and pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties, as well as recruit­ment across its engi­neer­ing teams. The com­pa­ny has also opened new offices in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, and San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, adding to its exist­ing loca­tions in Moun­tain View and San Mar­tin, Cal­i­for­nia, and Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co. It plans to estab­lish a radar devel­op­ment cen­tre of excel­lence in Seat­tle.

The com­pa­ny devel­ops automa­tion sys­tems for con­ven­tion­al air­craft, with its Reli­able Auton­o­my Sys­tem (RAS) being cer­ti­fied for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in the US on the Cess­na 208B Grand Car­a­van. The sys­tem is designed to auto­mate air­craft oper­a­tions from gate to gate, includ­ing taxi­ing, take-off, en-route flight man­age­ment and land­ing.

Reli­able says its tech­nol­o­gy is intend­ed to inte­grate with exist­ing air­craft and avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture with­out requir­ing changes to the US Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem. Its devel­op­ment work includes high-integri­ty nav­i­ga­tion, auto­mat­ed flight con­trols and four-dimen­sion­al flight plan­ning.

The com­pa­ny is work­ing with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion on cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — Reli­able describes its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan and asso­ci­at­ed com­pli­ance work as sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones, but the sys­tem has not yet received approval for rou­tine com­mer­cial autonomous oper­a­tions.

Reli­able is also pur­su­ing defence appli­ca­tions. It says it has secured con­tracts with mul­ti­ple branch­es of the US mil­i­tary and com­plet­ed sev­er­al mil­i­tary air­wor­thi­ness review process­es with the US Air Force. Mean­while, in the com­mer­cial sec­tor, the com­pa­ny has been select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the FAA’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram.

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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