Skyfly Just Raised $10M to Put a Two-Seat eVTOL in Your Garage

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-21

Skyfly Technologies just closed a $10 million Seed round. And if you've been watching the eVTOL space, you know that's not just another funding headline — it's a signal that the rules of personal flight are quietly being rewritten. The British developer of electric and hybrid-electric vertical take-off aircraft announced the raise this week, led by HICO Investment Group with participation from Archangel, a $50 million early-stage fund and Europe's only dedicated next-generation defense technology venture fund. ### What Skyfly Actually Builds Founded in 2019 and based in Thorpe Mandeville, Oxfordshire, Skyfly develops manned and unmanned aircraft for both civilian and defense markets. Its flagship product, the Axe, is a two-seat, fully electric, vertically-capable aircraft with a range of over 100 miles and a cruise speed of 100 mph. No runway required — for take-off or landing. The Longbow, meanwhile, is its hybrid-electric unmanned derivative built for defense and government customers. Here's what makes the Axe interesting. It takes off like a helicopter using eight fixed-angle electric motors, then transitions to forward flight where its wings generate aerodynamic lift. Because there are no tilting motors or rotary wings, the design eliminates much of the mechanical complexity — and the potential points of failure — that plague many eVTOL concepts. And in an emergency power loss scenario? The winged design lets the aircraft glide rather than fall. That's a meaningful safety difference. ### The Numbers That Matter - Range: over 100 miles - Flight time: 60 to 90 minutes - Cruise speed: 100 mph - Payload capacity: 200 kg (about 440 lbs) - Projected operating cost: roughly $90 per flight That last figure puts the Axe in favorable standing against legacy two-seaters like the Robinson R22 or Cessna 152. For private owners, that's a real economic argument. ### Defense, Too The Longbow is a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft with a range exceeding 400 miles and the same 200 kg payload. It's designed for cargo resupply, intelligence and surveillance, medevac, and ship-to-shore logistics missions. > "Longbow addresses a clear requirement for unmanned systems that can move meaningful payloads over significant distances without relying on a runway," said Nicholas Nelson, General Partner at Archangel Ventures. "Our backing of Skyfly reflects the potential we see in its technology to deliver mission necessary capability for the modern battlespace." Both aircraft will be manufactured at Skyfly's 10,000 sq. ft. facility in Oxfordshire. ### The Regulatory Tailwind Here's the part most people miss. The fundraise comes amid a regulatory shift: the FAA's MOSAIC reforms take effect in July 2026. Those reforms rewrite the rules governing Light Sport Aircraft to admit electric propulsion, multi-motor architectures, and vertical take-off aircraft into a category historically restricted to private owners rather than commercial operators. Skyfly says the Axe — a two-seat electric Vertically Capable Aircraft classified as Light Sport-class — was designed precisely for this rulebook. "This investment gives us the resources to take the Axe from a flying prototype to a certified aircraft in customers' hands," said Michael Thompson, founder and CEO of Skyfly. "The FAA's MOSAIC rules have opened a route to market that simply didn't exist before." ### Traction Already The Axe prototype has completed more than 100 piloted flights, including Europe's first airfield-to-airfield eVTOL flight. It holds experimental flight permits in both the UK and the US, and 61 private customers globally have already placed orders. That's not a concept rendering. That's a flying aircraft with a waiting list. ### Why This Matters for US Startups If you're building in the eVTOL or advanced air mobility space, Skyfly's path is worth studying. It's not just about the tech — it's about designing to a regulatory window that's about to open. The MOSAIC reforms create a genuine route to market for light sport-class electric aircraft in the US. Companies that align their certification strategy with that timeline could find themselves years ahead of competitors still chasing commercial certification. And for investors? A $10 million Seed round in a hardware-heavy sector with real flight hours and paying customers is a different kind of bet than the usual software pitch. It's slower. It's harder. But the moat is deeper. Skyfly isn't promising flying cars in every driveway by next summer. It's promising a certified two-seater by the time the rules allow it. That's a much more grounded — and frankly more believable — pitch.