Vertical Aerospace Secures Up to $850M After Two-Way Transition Flight

Vertical Aerospace, the Bristol-based developer of the Valo electric air taxi, finalised a financing package of up to $850 million on 20 April 2026. The deal, first announced on 30 March, came days after the company completed its first piloted two-way transition flight, the most important technical test so far for its tiltrotor design.

Together, the money and the flight test give Vertical a funded path towards its target of type certification in 2028, at a time when several rival electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) developers have run out of cash.

The transition flight

On 14 April 2026, chief test pilot Simon Davies flew the full-scale VX4 prototype at Vertical's flight test centre at Cotswold Airport, Kemble, in Gloucestershire. In one continuous flight, the aircraft took off vertically on rotor thrust, converted to wing-borne cruise with its front propellers tilted forward and its rear propellers stopped and stowed, and then converted back to land vertically. Vertical announced the result on 16 April.

The flight built on a one-way, thrustborne-to-wingborne transition flown by test pilot Paul Stone on 2 April. Transition is the hardest part of the flight envelope for a tiltrotor eVTOL, because the aircraft has to move from being held up by its propellers to being held up by its wings without losing control or altitude.

Vertical said it was the second company in the world to complete a piloted two-way transition in a full-scale tiltrotor eVTOL, after Joby Aviation, and the first to do so under civil Design Organisation Approval oversight from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

How the $850 million is structured

The headline figure is a ceiling rather than cash in the bank. Most of it consists of facilities that Vertical can draw on over several years, subject to conditions. The package was arranged with Mudrick Capital Management, Vertical's largest shareholder, and Yorkville Advisors Global.

• Equity: $50 million of new ordinary shares, raised at the time of the March announcement, with a further $30 million expected within weeks. Vertical said this gave it about $160 million of capital to fund its certification work for the rest of 2026.
• Convertible notes: Mudrick agreed to extend the maturity of its existing convertible secured notes from December 2028 to December 2030, after the planned certification date, and to buy up to $50 million of additional notes.
• Preferred equity: Yorkville can buy up to $250 million of Series A convertible preferred shares over 24 months.
• Equity line: Yorkville will provide up to $500 million of equity purchase capacity over 36 months, available as the company reaches programme milestones.

Equity lines of this kind allow a company to sell shares to the investor in stages, so the amount actually raised depends on the share price and on how much Vertical chooses to draw. Existing shareholders face dilution as the facilities are used.

The Valo

The Valo, unveiled in December 2025, is the production design that follows the VX4 prototype. It has eight electric motors and eight battery packs designed and built by Vertical. The launch cabin seats four passengers plus a pilot, and the layout can be expanded to six seats. Vertical is targeting a range of about 100 miles and a cruise speed of about 150 mph, with zero operating emissions. A hybrid-electric version with longer range is also in development.

Vertical plans to build seven certification aircraft in the UK for compliance testing with the CAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). It reports about 1,500 conditional pre-orders from customers including American Airlines, Avolon, Bristow, GOL and Japan Airlines.

In December 2025 Vertical, Skyports Infrastructure and Bristow set out plans for a first UK network linking Canary Wharf with Heathrow, Gatwick, Cambridge and Oxford, with the first phase planned from the first quarter of 2029. The partners estimate a Canary Wharf to Heathrow flight would take about 12 minutes, against 60 to 90 minutes by road.

A thinning field

The funding matters because the eVTOL sector has been through a severe shake-out. Lilium, the German developer once valued at more than $3 billion, filed for insolvency in October 2024 after spending around $1.5 billion. In October 2025 Archer Aviation bought about 300 Lilium patents for €18 million (about $21 million). Other start-ups have also closed or sought creditor protection.

The surviving leaders are now concentrated in a small group. In the United States, Joby Aviation is the furthest advanced in Federal Aviation Administration type certification and Archer is close behind. The US government's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program is intended to let mature designs fly real operations before full certification. Vertical is the leading developer in the UK and is pursuing CAA and EASA certification rather than FAA approval first.

What has happened since

• July 2026: Vertical flew five demonstration flights over five days at the Farnborough International Airshow. The first, on 20 July, was the first public eVTOL transition flight in the show's history.
• August 2026: the company announced about $100 million of new financing commitments. These comprised $40 million from Mudrick under its existing convertible note facility, a $35 million underwritten offering of shares and warrants at $1.05 per unit, and a $25 million draw on the Yorkville preferred equity facility. Vertical said the money would fund its Critical Design Review, an expanded battery Energy Centre with three times the production capacity, UK manufacturing plans and the conversion of a prototype for hybrid-electric testing in the first half of 2027.