SPAC To Take Air Taxi Startup Joby Public

SPAC To Take Air Taxi Startup Joby Public 

BY TYLER DURDEN THURSDAY, FEB 25, 2021 - 11:20 Submitted by Market Crumbs,

SPACs have continued their hot run this year as the preferred way to bring companies to the public market. 144 SPACs have gone public so far this year, or an average of five per day, according to Goldman Sachs' Ben Snider.

With a SPAC named Just Another Acquisition Corp. filing for an IPO last week, there's not much left to be surprised about in the SPAC space. The latest SPAC announcement will see air taxi startup Joby Aviation go public through a reverse merger with Reinvent Technology Partners in a deal valuing the combined company at $6.6 billion.

The deal will give Joby $1.6 billion in gross proceeds to continue development of its electric vertical takeoff and landing (“eVTOL”) aircraft. Touting its "first-mover advantage," Joby intends to use the proceeds to fund the business through the beginning of commercial operations, which Joby expects in the U.S. in 2024 before expanding globally.

Joby, which has already logged more than 1,000 test flights in its eVTOL aircraft, is the first company to agree to a certification basis for an eVTOL aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration and the first to receive an airworthiness approval for an eVTOL aircraft from the U.S. Air Force.

"But our long-term vision has always been to build a global passenger service, helping a billion people to save an hour every day, while contributing to the protection of our precious planet," Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said. "Today's transaction lets us look ahead to the next decade and provides us with the resources we need to bring our vision to life."

Joby received an investment from Toyota Motor Corporation last year that will see Toyota engineers work with Joby on tasks such as factory layout and manufacturing process development. Joby also struck a deal recently to acquire Uber's aerial ridesharing unit, Uber Elevate, while the two companies will also integrate their respective services into each other's apps.

Reinvent Technology Partners is led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and Michael Thompson.

"In Joby we see a remarkable founder-led team that has quietly delivered the most advanced technology we've seen in this sector," Hoffman said. "With valuable strategic partnerships including Toyota and Uber, a compelling business model and an unparalleled track-record of executing against its targets, we believe Joby is well-positioned to create a transformative new human-centered mobility network."

As SPAC IPOs continue at an unbelievable pace, Joby is the latest example of a company working on a futuristic technology that's headed to the public market.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/spac-take-air-taxi-startup-joby-public

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke...
Read more

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that th...
Read more

New ATM's: withdraw money with veins in your finger

New cash machines: withdraw money with veins in your finger Cash machine technology that reads the pattern of finger veins is already available in Japan and Poland   By Telegraph Reporters 6:59PM BST 15 May 2014 Cash machines could soon be installed with devices that identify customers by reading the veins in their fingers. The technology is already being rolled out in Poland, where 1,730 cash machines will this year be installed with readers, negating the need for a debit card and Pin. Developed by Hitachi, the Japanese electronics firm, the machines read the patterns of the veins just below the surface of the skin on your finger using infra-red sensors. The light is partially absorbed by haemoglobin in the veins to capture a unique finger vein pattern profile, which is matched to a profile. The technology is used by Japanese banks and also in Turkey, offering “groundbreaking levels of accuracy and speed of authentication”, Hitachi said, which in t...
Read more