ZeroAvia, a Kemble, UK- and Hollister, CA-based hydrogen-electric aviation company, raised an undisclosed amount in funding.
The round was co-led by Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital and NEOM. Energy Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Alaska Airlines, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, AP Ventures and Amazon Climate Pledge Fund also participated.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate progress towards certification of its first engine, ZA600, and to continue to progress its larger engine programm the ZA2000, a 2-5.4 MW modular powertrain designed to support larger commercial aircraft applications. ZeroAvia is working on retrofitting a Dash 8 400 76-seat testbed demonstrator provided by Alaska Airlines, with a view to first flight testing with a full size engine in 2024.
ZeroAvia recently completed the first stage of flight testing of the prototype ZA600 and is moving to complete design work ahead of certification, targeting 2025 entry-in-service to support up to 20 seat aircraft.
Led by Val Miftakhov, Founder and CEO, ZeroAvia specializes in zero-emission aviation, focused on hydrogen-electric aviation as the initially targeting a 300-mile range in 9–19 seat aircraft by the end of 2025, and up to 700-mile range in 40–80 seat aircraft by 2027. The company’s hydrogen-electric engines use hydrogen in fuel cells to generate electricity, which is then used to power electric motors to turn the aircraft’s propellers, with the only byproduct during flight being water. It has already secured experimental certificates for its three prototype aircraft from the CAA and FAA, passed flight test milestones, secured a number of key partnerships with aircraft OEMs and pre-orders for nearly 2,000 engines from a number of the global airlines. ZeroAvia is part of the UK Government’s Jet Zero Council.
In conjunction with the investment, Airbus and ZeroAvia have agreed to collaborate on certification approaches for hydrogen power systems. The companies also intend to work together on a number of critical technical areas, including liquid hydrogen fuel storage, flight and ground testing of fuel cell propulsion systems, and development of hydrogen refueling infrastructure and operations.
FInSMEs
18/09/2023