Reliable Robotics has raised $115 million, taking its valuation past $1 billion, the company announced on Tuesday. The Mountain View, California, startup builds systems that let existing aircraft taxi, take off, fly and land on their own.
The money extends the Series D it announced in April at $160 million, bringing the round to $275 million. The new tranche includes a $25 million term loan from Silicon Valley Bank, so $90 million is equity, TechCrunch reported. Nimble Partners led again.
New investors include Gideon Capital, RockCreek, Geek Ventures, Gold Hill Capital and Sparkwave Capital, and Island Green Partners returned. Reliable has now raised more than $380 million in equity. Its co-founders, chief executive Robert Rose and chief technology officer Juerg Frefel, both worked at SpaceX.
“We continue to make steady progress and deliver evidence to the FAA and every day, we inch closer and closer,” Rose told TechCrunch.
A pilot on board, for now
Reliable is certifying its Reliable Autonomy System with the Federal Aviation Administration on the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. The company says it holds the only FAA-accepted certification plan for continuous autopilot engagement.
That first product handles engine start, taxi, take-off and landing, with a pilot still in the cockpit. Rose told TechCrunch he expects certification in 18 to 24 months. A second stage moves the pilot to a ground station, and he put that at least three years away.
The company is also building its own solid-state radar to stop aircraft colliding, which Rose expects to be certified by the end of 2027. Its cargo airline, Reliable Airlines, flies six Cessna Caravans out of Albuquerque, six days a week.
Reliable is part of the FAA’s Advanced Air Mobility Integration Pilot Program. It lets the company run cargo flights to small and rural towns in New Mexico and Colorado before certification. The same programme has let Elroy Air fly a pilotless cargo plane out of a working airport.
The software behind autonomous flight is under scrutiny elsewhere. In July, Boeing’s air taxi subsidiary Wisk faced a whistleblower lawsuit over rushed software testing.
Military contracts and a radar hub
Reliable pitches the system as dual-use. It has contracts with several branches of the US military and has completed several US Air Force airworthiness reviews, the company said.
The money will pay for more aircraft, production space and engineers. The company now has more than 250 staff. A new office in Bothell, near Seattle, will open with about 25 people as a radar centre, while a San Diego office will focus on military autonomy, GeekWire reported. Shield AI, which builds an AI-piloted fighter jet, picked the Seattle area for its own production hub last month.
“It’s a much bigger effort and much bigger opportunity than to just build one plane,” John Burbank, founder of Nimble Partners, told TechCrunch.