Samson Sky Secures $80 Million Investment for Switchblade Production

Sam­son Sky has secured an $80 mil­lion invest­ment from Dubai-based Matin Group to sup­port the planned pro­duc­tion of its Switch­blade fly­ing car, with the com­pa­ny prepar­ing to estab­lish its first man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in the US.

The Ore­gon-based com­pa­ny said the invest­ment forms part of a Joint Invest­ment Agree­ment with Matin Group, with the two com­pa­nies estab­lish­ing a joint ven­ture intend­ed to move the Switch­blade towards com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Sam­son Sky said a fur­ther $20 mil­lion is still required to com­plete its pro­duc­tion fund­ing.

The planned facil­i­ty will cov­er approx­i­mate­ly 180,000 square feet, although Sam­son Sky has not dis­closed a loca­tion. The com­pa­ny said the invest­ment will be used to estab­lish the site and sup­port pro­duc­tion of the vehi­cle.

The Switch­blade is designed as a two-seat hybrid-elec­tric vehi­cle capa­ble of oper­at­ing on roads and as an air­craft. In dri­ving con­fig­u­ra­tion, its wings and tail are enclosed with­in the vehi­cle, allow­ing it to be stored in a stan­dard garage and dri­ven to an air­port. Once at an air­port, the vehi­cle can trans­form into fly­ing con­fig­u­ra­tion in about three min­utes, accord­ing to Sam­son Sky.

The com­pa­ny sees the air­craft to be pri­mar­i­ly used for region­al jour­neys of between 200 and 500 miles — with users expect­ed to dri­ve to an air­port, fly to an air­port near their des­ti­na­tion and then con­tin­ue by road.

Sam­son Sky report­ed that the Switch­blade com­plet­ed its first flight in Novem­ber 2023. The com­pa­ny now says it is prepar­ing to move from devel­op­ment and test­ing towards pro­duc­tion, cit­ing demand from cus­tomers across all 50 US states and 50 coun­tries.

The Switch­blade will enter the US mar­ket under the Exper­i­men­tal air­craft cat­e­go­ry rather than as a con­ven­tion­al­ly type-cer­ti­fied air­craft. Sam­son Sky says the FAA requires own­ers of Exper­i­men­tal air­craft to build at least 51% of the vehi­cle them­selves. Under its planned process, cus­tomers will spend a week at the com­pa­ny’s Builder Assist Cen­ter com­plet­ing the required por­tion before Sam­son Sky fin­ish­es the vehi­cle.

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

See Full Bio