How do you get out of the litigation with a competent competitor? Perhaps by turning it into a partner and, even better, a shareholder could be a winning situation. This is the result of the year-long legal battle between Archer and Wisk now wholly-owned by Boeing.
On 10 August 2023 Wisk Aero (“Wisk”) and Archer Aviation (“Archer”) , along with The Boeing Company (“Boeing”) which is the mother company of Wisk, announced that they have reached a settlement to resolve the federal and state court litigation between the parties on undisclosed terms. Simultaneously, the parties have entered into a collaboration that looks forward to the growth and development of the advanced air mobility industry. Archer has agreed to make Wisk its exclusive provider of autonomy technology for future variants of Archer’s aircraft. As part of the parties’ collaboration, Boeing is making an investment in Archer that will support the integration of Wisk’s autonomous technology in future variants of Archer’s aircraft.
With this solution Archer successfully closed the oversubscribed PIPE as part Of $215M investment round led By Stellantis; ARK & United Airline. United Airlines’ investment in the PIPE is its third time investing in Archer as it originally invested $25M in 2021 in connection with entering into its aircraft purchase agreement with Archer for up to $1.5B worth of aircraft and just last year made a $10M pre-delivery payment for the first 100 of those aircraft
In addition to ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”) and United Airlines, the oversubscribed PIPE financing includes participation from an impressive roster of existing and new investors, including The Boeing Company (“Boeing”) and Ken Moelis, through a related investment vehicle
The PIPE investment combined with the $70M that Stellantis accelerated as part of its investment in this round under the January 2023 strategic funding agreement will bring Archer’s aggregate funding to over $1.1B to date.
