Skyfly Technologies has closed a $10 million seed round led by specialist growth equity investor HICO Investment Group, with participation from Archangel, to take its two-seat Axe electric aircraft from flying prototype to certified production. The funding will fund FAA light-sport certification of the Axe under the MOSAIC rules that came into force in July 2026, scale production in the UK and US with first customer deliveries planned for 2027, and accelerate development of the hybrid propulsion system and the Longbow unmanned aircraft for defence customers.
Skyfly arrives at the raise with operational momentum. The company reports more than 100 piloted prototype flights, 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 operating since 2025. The Axe appeared at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2025 and 2026, and 61 private customers are on the order book.
Axe eVTOL design and performance
The Axe is a two-seat electric aircraft that takes off vertically and transitions to wing-borne cruise. Skyfly states the aircraft has a range of more than 100 miles, a flight time of 60 to 90 minutes, a cruising speed of 100 mph and a 200 kg payload. Projected running costs are around £70 ($90) per flying hour. The airframe is technology-agnostic so new battery and motor technologies can be fitted as they become available, and it is built around aggressive weight reduction using advanced composite structures to deliver efficiency measured in kilowatts per passenger mile.
What Skyfly highlights as a key differentiator is the 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 and then uses its wings for lift in forward flight, allowing it to take off, cruise and land like a conventional aeroplane when a runway is available. The design uses no tilting motors or rotating wings, removing the heavier, complex mechanisms used by many rivals, and the company notes the aircraft will glide if power is lost.
Certification, production and market path
The timing of the funding follows the FAA’s MOSAIC reforms, which came into force in July 2026 and rewrote the Light Sport Aircraft rules to admit electric propulsion, multi-motor designs and vertical take-off aircraft into a category intended for private owners rather than airlines. Under the updated rules the Axe is enabled as a two-seat, Light Sport-class electric Vertically Capable Aircraft (eVCA), a category with simplified pilot qualification requirements aimed at lowering barriers to private ownership.
Skyfly says the seed round will complete certification under the updated standards, grow the team and production capacity on both sides of the Atlantic, and accelerate the hybrid propulsion technology that underpins its defence products.
Longbow unmanned variant and defence activity
Alongside the manned Axe, Skyfly is developing the Longbow, a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft with a range of more than 400 miles and a 200 kg payload for roles such as cargo resupply, ISTAR, medevac and ship-to-shore logistics. Skyfly has been enrolled onto the UK Ministry of Defence’s heavy lift challenge, and the company says further defence announcements will follow. Both the Axe and Longbow will be built at Skyfly’s 10,000 sq ft manufacturing and assembly facility in the UK.
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.”
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. We’re excited to back a team with a big vision and relentless drive to execute.”
