Joby Aviation, the 12-year-old electrical air taxi startup partnered with Toyota and Uber, will go public in a $6.6 billion reverse merger with clean test firm Reinvent Know-how Companions, the companies stated on Wednesday.
California-based Joby goals to start a industrial passenger service in 2024, utilizing its electrical vertical takeoff and touchdown (eVTOL) plane. Potential air taxi rivals embody well-funded German startups Volocopter and Lilium.
Joby is being taken public by way of a particular function acquisition firm (SPAC) headed by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and longtime investor Michael Thompson.
In an interview, Hoffman stated: “We did months of due diligence — we acquired the identical common sign. These guys have gotten all the pieces (to) redefine this new house … I consider Joby as Tesla meets Uber within the air.”
Joby is the primary aerial car startup to go public by way of the SPAC route. Reuters reported solely in January that Joby was exploring a deal to go public with a blank-check acquisition firm.
Joby beforehand had obtained $800 million in enterprise funding, together with a $620 million Sequence C spherical led by Toyota in early 2020 that valued the corporate at greater than $2 billion, in keeping with investor web site Crunchbase. Early buyers included JetBlue, Intel and asset supervisor Baillie Gifford.
Toyota is working with Joby to design a California manufacturing facility for its four-passenger eVTOL plane, and is sharing entry to its provider community, Joby executives stated.
“Toyota’s involvement has actually accelerated our manufacturing ramp — they’re the important thing to unlocking international scale for us,” stated JoeBen Bevirt, Joby CEO and founder.
Joby final yr acquired Uber’s fledgling air taxi enterprise, Uber Elevate. Uber will present knowledge to Joby’s aerial ride-sharing enterprise.
“We wish to tie collectively air and floor transportation to ship the proper buyer expertise,” stated Paul Sciarra, Joby govt chairman and co-founder of Pinterest.
Reinvent pulled in $835 million in PIPE investments from BlackRock, Constancy and Baillie Gifford, which collectively have funded among the high technology-driven transportation startups, together with Tesla, Uber and Rivian.
The SPAC transaction will present Joby with $1.6 billion in money and is predicted to shut within the second quarter.
