The acquisition will be funded by roughly $450 million in cash and $50 million in Joby common stock and is expected to close "in the first half of 2027," according to a press release.
Pending regulatory approval, the sales of drone maker Insitu, air traffic management firm SkyGrid and electric aircraft maker Wisk Aero are expected to close by the end of the year.
Predictive artificial intelligence and autonomy will reshape how forces are sustained across the Pacific.
BETA’s MV250 will use a hybrid-electric propulsion system developed in partnership with GE Aerospace and an autonomy stack supplied by Sikorsky for a wide range of military missions, according to company executives.
Joby plans to manufacture the hybrid electric vertical takeoff aircraft while L3Harris will provide its mission systems to pitch to military customers.
“The sort of lowest hanging fruit there are probably contested logistics, counter-UAS [unmanned aerial systems] and electronic warfare,” Joby Executive Chairman Paul Sciarra told Breaking Defense.
“There a lot of unmanned systems, that’s where we're seeing a lot of growth,” said Honeywell Aerospace’s Matt Milas. “So we’re definitely moving in the direction of unmanned solutions for defense applications.”
Multi-orbit mission capabilities are accelerating decision making across domains.
“The involvement of the military massively augments our velocity on the commercial side because the military's expectation of an airplane is fundamentally the same as the FAA’s. They want a safe, reliable, repeatedly produced aircraft,” said BETA founder and CEO Kyle Clark.
“There's a transformative vertical lift industry that's emerging and we need to be partners in it," said AFWERX Director Col. Elliot Leigh.