Joby Aviation

Joby Aviation was founded as Joby Aero on September 11, 2009 as one of several projects incubated by JoeBen Bevirt on his ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains, using the proceeds from successful exits of previous companies. According to the company's website, the early years were spent exploring different components of electric aviation, including electric motors, flight software, and lithium-ion batteries. The research led Joby to participate in the NASA X-57 Maxwell and LEAPTech projects, before developing its own air taxi concept. Joby's early concept, publicly called the S2, had eight tilting propellers arrayed along the leading edge of its wing and four more tilting propellers mounted on its V-shaped tail. Later, the company moved to a configuration that features six rotating propellers.

By 2015, the company was operating subscale prototypes of its eVTOL aircraft, moving to full-scale unmanned prototypes in 2017, and a production prototype in 2019. In 2018, the company announced a Series B funding round of $100 million, led by Toyota AI Ventures. By 2019, the company was in active conversations with the FAA about certifying the aircraft and announced a partnership with Uber's Elevate division.

For its first ten years, Joby operated in stealth mode, sometimes leading to skepticism of the company's claims. The first journalist granted access to the aircraft in 2018 agreed not to disclose details about the aircraft. In 2020, however, the company began releasing significantly more information, starting with its January announcement of a $590 million funding round, led by Toyota Motor Corporation. At that announcement, the company revealed its production vehicle. In January 2020, Bevirt was a keynote speaker at the meeting of the Vertical Flight Society.

In January 2020, Joby announced plans to manufacture the aircraft in Marina, California at the Marina Municipal Airport. The plans include building a 55,000 square foot production facility, followed by a 500,000 square foot factory. Late in 2020, Joby Aviation acquired Uber Elevate, and the U.S. …

The company was originally self-financed by Bevirt, after the sale of his previous companies, Velocity11 and GorillaPod. On February 1, 2018, Joby Aviation announced that it raised $100 million in a Series B round of funding, including from Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, Jet Blue Technology Ventures, Tesla/SpaceX-backer Capricorn Investment Group, Allen & Company AME Cloud Ventures, Ron Conway, 8VC, CloudKitchens co-founder Sky Dayton, and Pinterest co-founder Paul Sciarra. On January 15, 2020, Joby Aviation announced a Series C round of funding, totaling $590 million, led by Toyota Motor Corporation and a manufacturing partnership with Toyota. In December 2020, Joby Aviation acquired Elevate, Uber's air taxi division, and also received a $75 million investment from Uber, bringing Joby Aviation's total funds raised to $820 million.

In January 2021, it was reported that Joby Aviation was exploring a special-purpose acquisition company (also known as "blank check corporation") to become a public company. In February 2021, the company entered into a business combination agreement with Reinvent Technology Partners, a SPAC funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. Shares in the SPAC, incorporated October 2020 in the Cayman Islands in 2020, were traded on the New York Stock Exchange as the symbol RTP. Upon the closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named Joby Aviation, and become publicly traded, with its common stock to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange as the symbol JOBY.

In October 2022, Delta Air Lines announced a $60 million investment in Joby Aviation to offer “home-to-airport” flights, at first from New York City and Los Angeles.

The Joby air taxi is intended to be a four-passenger commercial aircraft with a pilot, capable of traveling up to 150 miles (240 km) on a single charge at a top speed of 200 mph (320 km/h), with a maximum payload of 1,000 pounds. It is designed to take off and land vertically like a helicopter, and transition to horizontal cruise like a fixed-wing aircraft. Nearly silent in flight, the electric-powered aircraft is designed to operate with no emissions and to be 100 times quieter during takeoff and landing than a helicopter. Joby plans to mass-produce its eVTOL, with a plan to operate a piloted on-demand air-taxi service. The aircraft will be operated as a service with per-trip passenger pricing.

Joby described the Uber Elevate acquisition as a way to accelerate its commercial launch through Elevate's tools and personnel. Elevate had previously operated a service called Uber Copter, which allowed all Uber users in the New York area to book a trip to John F. Kennedy International Airport, with a car taking riders to a heliport and a helicopter then taking riders to the airport. While the service used Bell 430 helicopters with Uber branding, the aircraft were operated by a separate helicopter company, Heliflite. Joby Aviation cited Elevate's software tools enabling market selection, demand simulation and multi-modal operations as the reasons to purchase Elevate, suggesting the acquisition may play a significant role in Joby's commercial service. Joby has not commented on whether it will continue Elevate's plans to launch in Los Angeles, Dallas, and Melbourne.

In Dec 2024 Joby became the first company to fly in Korea’s K-UAM Grand Challenge.