eVTOL pioneer Skyfly lands $10 million to bring personal vertical flight to market

Seed round led by specialist growth equity investor, HICO Investment Group, with defence-tech fund Archangel, takes the 2-seat Axe from prototype to production

THORPE MANDEVILLE, UNITED KINGDOM, October 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — • Funds FAA light-sport certification of the Axe under the MOSAIC rules that came into force in July 2026
• Scales production in the UK and US, with first customer deliveries planned for 2027
• Accelerates the hybrid propulsion system and the Longbow unmanned aircraft for defence customers
• Follows 100+ piloted prototype flights, UK and US experimental permits and an order book of 61 private customers

Skyfly Technologies, the British developer of electric and hybrid-electric vertically capable aircraft, has closed a $10 million seed round led by specialist growth equity investor, HICO Investment Group, with participation from Archangel, Europe’s only dedicated next-generation defence technology fund. The investment takes the Axe, Skyfly’s two-seat electric aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like an aeroplane, from flying prototype to certified production aircraft in customers’ hands.

The timing is deliberate. In July 2026 the United States Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) MOSAIC reforms rewrote the Light Sport Aircraft rules, admitting electric propulsion, multi-motor designs and vertical take-off aircraft into a category built for private owners rather than airlines. The Axe was designed for that rulebook before it existed. The new funding will complete the aircraft’s certification under the updated standards, grow the team and production capacity on both sides of the Atlantic, and accelerate the hybrid propulsion system behind the Longbow, the unmanned, longer-range variant of the Axe aimed at defence and government customers.

Skyfly arrives at the raise with momentum. Its prototype has flown more than 100 times, completed Europe’s first airfield-to-airfield eVTOL flight and holds experimental flight permits in both the UK and the United States, where a dedicated flight test team has been flying since 2025. The Axe has drawn crowds at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the world’s largest air show, in both 2025 and 2026, and 61 private customers around the world are on the order book, with first deliveries planned for 2027.

Michael Thompson, CEO of Skyfly, said: “This investment gives us the resources to take the Axe from a flying prototype to a certified aircraft in customers’ hands. The FAA’s MOSAIC rules have opened a route to market that simply did not exist for electric aircraft before, and the Axe was designed for exactly this category. HICO and Archangel understood that timing, and their backing lets us move at the pace the opportunity demands: completing certification and standing up series production. It also accelerates development and demonstration of the hybrid propulsion technology underpinning our defence products, at a moment when uncrewed aircraft have become central to how nations think about security. We believe the Axe’s range and useful load offer a genuinely unique capability, with a level of simplicity the market has not yet seen.”

Fifty years without a new idea
The light aircraft market has barely changed in half a century. The two most common two-seat trainers, the Robinson R22 and the Cessna 152, were designed in the 1970s and are still flying today with only minimal updates. They are noisy, mechanically complex, demanding to fly, uncomfortable, built to safety standards of another era and expensive to run, at around £300 ($400) per flying hour.

The Axe is Skyfly’s answer: a modern, quiet, easy-to-fly two-seater with a projected running cost of around £70 ($90) per flying hour. It has a range of more than 100 miles, a flight time of 60 to 90 minutes, a cruising speed of 100mph and a 200kg payload, and it needs no runway. Its airframe is technology-agnostic, so new battery and motor technology can be fitted as it becomes available, and it is built around aggressive weight reduction through advanced composite structures, delivering what the company describes as industry-leading efficiency measured in kilowatts per passenger mile.

Wings, not compromises
What sets the Axe apart is its winged architecture. Most small personal eVTOL designs rely on rotors alone and can burn up to four times more energy in cruise because nothing is generating aerodynamic lift. The Axe hovers on eight fixed-angle electric motors, then lets its wings do the work in forward flight, so it can take off, cruise and land like a conventional aeroplane whenever a runway is available. There are no tilting motors or rotating wings, which removes the heavy, complex and failure-prone mechanisms found on many rivals, and if power is ever lost the aircraft glides.

Under the FAA’s updated Light Sport Aircraft rules, the Axe is enabled as a two-seat, Light Sport-class electric Vertically Capable Aircraft (eVCA), a category of eVTOL designed for private ownership and operation, with simplified pilot qualification requirements that significantly lower the barriers to owning and flying one.

From private pilots to the front line
Alongside the Axe, Skyfly is developing the Longbow, a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft with a range of more than 400 miles and a 200kg payload, designed for cargo resupply, ISTAR, medevac and ship-to-shore logistics. Skyfly has been enrolled onto the UK Ministry of Defence’s heavy lift challenge, with further defence announcements to follow.

Both aircraft will be built at Skyfly’s 10,000 sq ft manufacturing and assembly facility in the UK.
Nicholas Nelson, General Partner at Archangel Ventures, said: “Longbow addresses a clear requirement for unmanned systems that can move meaningful payloads over significant distances without relying on a runway. Archangel invests exclusively in defence-first companies, and our backing of Skyfly reflects the potential we see in its technology to deliver mission necessary capability for the modern battlespace.”

Chris Hartnoll, managing director at HICO Investment Group, said: “Electrification is revolutionising every industry that moves things, and aviation is next. A simpler electric drivetrain, with fewer moving parts and requiring a fraction of the maintenance, makes aircraft like the Axe practical for private owners for the first time and will enable the Longbow to transform logistics across domains. What Skyfly’s team has achieved with so little is remarkable: a new aircraft, designed and built from scratch, flying and now leading the way through a brand-new certification pathway.

Mr J Tipler
Influence emobility

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