SkyDrive Secures “Y8.3 Billion in Pre-Series D Funding from Suzuki, JR East, JR Kyushu”

Japan-based Sky­Drive recent­ly announced it has raised Y8.3 bil­lion in Pre-Series D fund­ing through a third-par­ty allot­ment, reports a press release. This fund­ing round was led by MUFG Bank with invest­ments from Suzu­ki Motor Corps, East Japan Rail­way Com­pa­ny, Kyushu Rail­way Com­pa­ny and sev­en oth­er com­pa­nies.

With this lat­est round, SkyDrive’s cumu­la­tive fund­ing now exceeds Y43 bil­lion.

New Investors

: Kyushu Rail­way Com­pa­ny (JR Kyushu).

: East Japan Rail­way Com­pa­ny (JR East).

: Uni­vance Corps.

Return­ing Investors

: ITOCHU Tech­nol­o­gy Ven­tures.

: Obayashi Corps.

: Kan­sai Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny.

: Suzu­ki  motor Corps.

: SuMi TRUST Inno­va­tion Invest­ment.

: TOYODA Iron Works.

: NHK Spring.

: MUFG Bank.

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, commented,“Since our addi­tion­al Series C fund­ing in August 2024, Sky­Drive has made steady progress in the devel­op­ment of our eVTOL air­craft. Pro­to­types have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed numer­ous flight tests with­out inci­dent, also achiev­ing a suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion flight at the Osa­ka-Kan­sai Expo site in April 2025. We are also pleased with the progress of our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plans with the issuance by JCAB of the stan­dards that will apply to our appli­ca­tion for type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

This new fund­ing will be used to strength­en the devel­op­ment team, enhance test­ing infra­struc­ture, improve oper­a­tional readi­ness and accel­er­ate activ­i­ties relat­ed to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and devel­op­ment.

Sky­Drive has wel­comed JR East and JR Kyushu as strate­gic equi­ty part­ners in this round and now main­tains cap­i­tal and busi­ness alliances with a total of four rail­way com­pa­nies. 

The release explains, “Inte­grat­ing SkyDrive’s eVTOL capa­bil­i­ties into exist­ing net­works oper­at­ed by these part­ner com­pa­nies will cre­ate seam­less mobil­i­ty solu­tions that effec­tive­ly com­bine over­land and air trav­el. These col­lab­o­ra­tions will also focus on the estab­lish­ment of air routes and the devel­op­ment of ver­ti­ports, as well as pub­lic rela­tions efforts designed to boost pub­lic sup­port for wide­spread eVTOL use.”

Mr. Yoichi Kise, Pres­i­dent and CEO of East Japan Rail­way Com­pa­ny, remarked, “By inte­grat­ing rail­way ser­vices with eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy, we aim to help build a more com­fort­able and sus­tain­able soci­ety.”

Yoji Furu­miya, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Direc­tor, Pres­i­dent and Cor­po­rate Offi­cer of Kyushu Rail­way Com­pa­ny, added, “Through the intro­duc­tion of inno­va­tions in air mobil­i­ty, we aim to make the Kyushu region more attrac­tive, and we are com­mit­ted to work­ing togeth­er with the local com­mu­ni­ty to advance this excit­ing project.”

Fukuza­wa con­tin­ued, “As we wel­come this new invest­ment, we would also like to express our deep­est grat­i­tude to all of the investors who have been with us from the ear­li­er stages of our jour­ney. Their unwa­ver­ing sup­port enables us to push the bound­aries of inno­va­tion and work toward the wider pub­lic accep­tance and adop­tion of eVTOL.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://en.skydrive2020.com/

(Top image: Sky­Drive Investors)

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