ZeroAvia Secures “USD150 Million Via Series C Financing” 

U.S and UK-based ZeroAvia, a hydro­gen-elec­tric (fuel cell-pow­ered) pow­er­train devel­op­er, announced this week it has extend­ed its Series C Finance Round to a total of USD150 mil­lion, with a UKP20 mil­lion invest­ment from Scot­tish Nation­al Invest­ment Bank, reports a press release. This is along­side recent invest­ments from Amer­i­can Air­lines, Inter­na­tion­al Air­lines Group (IAG) and ITOCHU Cor­po­ra­tion.  

The Series C Round was co-led by Air­bus, Bar­clays Sus­tain­able Impact Cap­i­tal and NEOM Invest­ment Fund, with UK Infra­struc­ture Bank join­ing as a cor­ner­stone-lev­el investor, along­side strong sup­port from exist­ing share­hold­ers includ­ing Break­through Ener­gy Ven­tures, Hori­zons Ven­tures, Ecosys­tem Integri­ty Fund, Sum­ma Equi­ty, Alas­ka Air­lines, Amazon’s Cli­mate Pledge Fund and AP Ven­tures.  

This is the Scot­tish Bank’s first invest­ment in hydro­gen-based tech­nol­o­gy and the sus­tain­able avi­a­tion sec­tor which will bol­ster the grow­ing aero­space sup­ply chain in Scot­land, as ZeroAvia looks to cre­ate a man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in the coun­try. 

The com­pa­ny has already exten­sive­ly flight tested a pro­to­type of its first ZA600-engine aboard a Dornier 228 air­craft at its UK base, and the appli­ca­tion for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is under­way with the CAA. 

ZeroAvia, FEAM Aero Sign MOU “for MRO of Hydro­gen-Elec­tric Air­craft Engines”

The release explains, “The com­pa­ny has also per­formed advanced ground tests in the U.S and UK for the key build­ing block tech­nolo­gies for the ZA2000 sys­tem, includ­ing cryo­genic tanks for LH2 and pro­pri­etary high-tem­per­a­ture PEM fuel cell and elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems. ZA2000 will sup­port up to 80-seat region­al tur­bo­prop air­craft such as the ATR72 and the Dash 8 400.” 

It con­tin­ues, “The com­pa­ny is also sell­ing its com­po­nent tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing elec­tric motors and fuel cell pow­er gen­er­a­tion sys­tems, to oth­er elec­tric avi­a­tion inno­va­tors.”

Val Mif­takhov, Founder and CEO of ZeroAvia com­ment­ed, “We have closed an excep­tion­al­ly strong financ­ing round to help us deliv­er the clean future of flight for the entire­ty of avi­a­tion. As a pur­pose-dri­ven impact investor, the Bank is an ide­al part­ner for ZeroAvia. Scotland’s ambi­tious net zero tar­gets, its strate­gic focus on hydro­gen and its strong exist­ing aero­space skills base make it an attrac­tive place for ZeroAvia’s UK pro­duc­tion oper­a­tions as we scale into a major aero­space man­u­fac­tur­er.” 

Robin Tay­al, Invest­ment Direc­tor at the Scot­tish Bank added,“Decarbonising avi­a­tion is one of the key envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges we face, and it is fun­da­men­tal to the net zero tran­si­tion. We are pleased to address it by invest­ing in ZeroAvia, enabling crit­i­cal research and man­u­fac­tur­ing. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly encour­aged by the poten­tial of its tech­nol­o­gy to pro­vide sus­tain­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the High­lands and Islands.” 

Val Mif­takhov

Back­ground

With a pri­ma­ry focus on devel­op­ing fuel cell-pow­ered engines, ZeroAvia has sub­mit­ted its first pow­er­train for up to 20 seat planes for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and is work­ing on a larg­er sys­tem for 40 to 80 seat air­craft. 

First found­ed in Cal­i­for­nia, the com­pa­ny has secured exper­i­men­tal cer­tifi­cates to test its engines in three sep­a­rate test­bed air­craft with the FAA and CAA and passed sig­nif­i­cant flight test mile­stones. 

ZeroAvia has signed a num­ber of impor­tant engi­neer­ing part­ner­ships with major air­craft OEMs and has more than 2,000 pre-orders for hydro­gen-elec­tric engines and com­po­nent tech­nolo­gies from a num­ber of the major glob­al air­lines, car­go oper­a­tors, lessors and inno­va­tors.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://zeroavia.com/

(Images: ZeroAvia)

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