Analysis
The electric air taxi sector spent five years raising against a certification timeline that kept moving. This month it started consolidating instead. TechCrunch Mobility reported on August 16 that Archer Aviation acquired Wisk Aero from Boeing -- a deal that also swept in SkyGrid, an airspace management software company, and Insitu, a drone manufacturer -- with Boeing taking a 16.5% stake in Archer as part of the transaction. It also resolves the trade-secrets lawsuit Wisk filed against Archer back in 2021.
Separately, Joby Aviation paid $500 million for Resonant Sciences and stood up Joby Defense, a business unit aimed squarely at government contracting while the company continues pushing its eVTOL through FAA type certification.
Both moves say the same thing: the pure-play air taxi thesis was not financeable on its own. Archer, founded in 2018 by Adam Goldstein and Brett Adcock, and Joby, founded in 2009 by JoeBen Bevirt, both went public via SPAC in 2021 at multibillion-dollar valuations on the promise of commercial passenger service by roughly 2024. That did not happen. Certification for a novel aircraft class under FAA Part 21 is measured in years of flight-test hours, and both companies have burned several hundred million dollars annually while waiting.
“Avride passed 100,000 autonomous rides on Uber's Dallas platform, with safety operators still aboard.”
Defense Is the Bridge
Defense is the bridge. Joby buying Resonant follows the same logic that took Anduril from $0 to a $30B+ valuation and pulled Neros Technologies a $250M Series C led by the American Strategic Technology Fund and Sequoia earlier this month: government budgets pay for capability now rather than after certification. Archer's acquisition of Insitu -- a drone maker with an existing military customer base -- is the same trade in a different wrapper.
The rest of the mobility tape reinforces the point that autonomy money is flowing to whatever is closest to revenue. Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI both received California DMV permits for autonomous truck testing, with Kodiak already operating. Avride passed 100,000 autonomous rides on Uber's Dallas platform, with safety operators still aboard. Waymo won CPUC approval to widen its Bay Area and Los Angeles service areas, with Sacramento and San Diego under consideration. Pony.ai and Uber plan 2,000 robotaxis across four European cities. And Uber quietly divested its entire stake in Serve Robotics, whose partnership contract runs to 2027.
The risk in the consolidation story is that combining two cash-burning certification programs does not produce one profitable company. Archer now carries Wisk's autonomous-aircraft program alongside its own piloted Midnight aircraft, which is more R&D, not less. Boeing converting a subsidiary into a 16.5% equity stake looks less like conviction than like moving a liability off its own balance sheet.
The date that actually matters for both companies is FAA type certification, and neither acquisition moves it.
The capital history behind these companies frames how much had to change. Archer and Joby together raised well over $3 billion through their SPAC mergers and follow-on offerings, backed by strategic investors including United Airlines, Stellantis, Toyota and Delta. Those partners signed on to a passenger-mobility thesis with airline order books attached, not to defense contracting -- which makes the pivot a governance conversation as much as a strategic one.
The comparison set is instructive. Anduril, founded in 2017, reached a reported $30B+ valuation without ever needing FAA passenger certification, because military procurement buys capability against a requirement rather than against a rulebook written for carrying civilians. Neros Technologies just raised a $250M Series C led by the American Strategic Technology Fund with Sequoia participating, on drone interception. The eVTOL companies are now competing for those same budgets with airframes designed for a different customer.
