Vertical Aerospace Secures $100 Million to Advance eVTOL Certification

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has secured financ­ing com­mit­ments of approx­i­mate­ly $100 mil­lion from exist­ing and new investors as it moves into the next phase of its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion pro­gramme for its Valo eVTOL air­craft.

The financ­ing com­pris­es $40 mil­lion from Mudrick Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment through Vertical’s exist­ing con­vert­ible note facil­i­ty, a $35 mil­lion equi­ty invest­ment from exist­ing and new investors, and a $25 mil­lion issuance through the company’s pre­ferred equi­ty facil­i­ty with Yorkville Advi­sors. The Mudrick Cap­i­tal com­po­nent remains sub­ject to defin­i­tive agree­ments.

Ver­ti­cal said the addi­tion­al cap­i­tal will sup­port sev­er­al pro­gramme mile­stones, includ­ing its Crit­i­cal Design Review (CDR). The review is intend­ed to estab­lish the cer­ti­fi­able design base­line for Valo and enable the com­pa­ny to build and test cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-con­form­ing air­craft.

Oth­er planned uses include expand­ing Vertical’s Ener­gy Cen­tre to increase bat­tery pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty, devel­op­ing future UK pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and retro­fitting its third pro­to­type air­craft for hybrid-elec­tric flight test­ing sched­uled for the first half of 2027.

The fund­ing fol­lows sev­er­al tech­ni­cal mile­stones for the UK-based com­pa­ny. Ear­li­er this year, Ver­ti­cal became the sec­ond com­pa­ny glob­al­ly to com­plete a pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight in a full-scale tiltro­tor eVTOL. It sub­se­quent­ly con­duct­ed five demon­stra­tion flights dur­ing the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, includ­ing what it described as the first pub­lic pilot­ed eVTOL tran­si­tion flights at the event.

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Air­space, said: “Fol­low­ing the momen­tum gen­er­at­ed by our progress over the last six months, includ­ing our pilot­ed tran­si­tion demon­stra­tions at Farn­bor­ough, we are focused on con­vert­ing oper­a­tional progress and part­ner engage­ment into con­tin­ued advance­ment of our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion strat­e­gy. The sup­port, reflect­ed in these financ­ings via new investors along­side fur­ther com­mit­ments from exist­ing investors, demon­strates strong con­fi­dence in Vertical’s mar­ket posi­tion and progress, pro­vid­ing near-term flex­i­bil­i­ty to exe­cute the next phase of our plan.”

Ver­ti­cal has also been expand­ing its gov­ern­ment and indus­try rela­tion­ships. The com­pa­ny is in advanced dis­cus­sions with the UK Gov­ern­ment over up to £10 mil­lion in sup­port for pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and next-gen­er­a­tion charg­ing tech­nolo­gies. It has also part­nered with autonomous flight spe­cial­ist Near Earth Auton­o­my on defence appli­ca­tions and report­ed inter­est from the UK Min­istry of Defence.

In addi­tion, Ver­ti­cal has joined Hon­ey­well Aerospace’s VERTI-GO pro­gramme, which aims to sup­port eVTOL inte­gra­tion into Euro­pean air­space.

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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