(Bloomberg) -- Electric aerospace startup Beta Technologies Inc. raised $318 million from investors to fund the production of aircraft that can takeoff and land vertically.
The financing was led by the Qatar Investment Authority, and was oversubscribed, the company said Thursday. The Series C funding round included participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, TPG and United Therapeutics Corp. The company declined to disclose its new valuation, but said it was higher than the $2.4 billion from its last funding round in 2022.
“The hardest thing about this is crossing the chasm of certification and production,” said Beta founder and Chief Executive Officer Kyle Clark. “We stayed private so we have the ability to focus on that mission. We are not distracted.”
The QIA’s investment passed a review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the US, Clark said.
South Burlington, Vermont-based Beta is part of a growing group of companies that are working to commercialize vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Unlike startups Joby Aviation Inc. and Archer Aviation Inc., Beta is not pursuing an airtaxi service, but solely focused on selling the aircraft to carriers across the logistics and transportation industries and the military.
US regulators recently brought the vertical aircraft sector a step closer to commercialization by releasing final safety rules that would allow flights to start in the US as soon a next year.
The investment takes Beta’s total capital raised to date to more than $1 billion, which includes funds from existing investor Amazon.com Inc.
The firm is also working on an electric conventional aircraft that takes off using a runway, which Clark sees as a near-term precursor to vertical lift off. At the end of 2023 the company completed a 1,700-mile test flight from its headquarters in Vermont to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida — delivering the aircraft to the US Air Force.
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