Impossible Aerospace, a Sunnyvale, California-based electric aircraft company, has raised $9.4 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Along with the funding news, Impossible Aerospace also announced the US-1 — which is an electric commercial-grade drone that has a flight time of up to two hours.
And Impossible Aerospace said that the US-1 is the first aircraft that was designed with a “battery-first approach.” This process was necessary for enabling electric aircraft to compete against its fuel counterparts. Impossible Aerospace has already begun selling the first units to police departments, firefighters, and other search and rescue teams across the country.
“The US-1 is more than just a drone. It’s the first aircraft designed properly from the ground up to be electric, using existing battery cells without compromise,” said Impossible Aerospace’s CEO Spencer Gore. “It’s not so much an aircraft as it is a flying battery, leveraging an energy source that doubles as its primary structure. This is how electric aircraft must be built if they are to compete with conventional designs and displace petroleum fuels in aviation.”
Existing investor Eclipse Ventures and new investor Airbus Ventures also joined this round of funding. Impossible Aerospace has raised more than $11 million so far. And the company comprises of a number former motor and battery engineers at Tesla Motors and SpaceX. Plus David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners and Greg Reichow of Eclipse Ventures are joining Impossible Aerospace’s board of directors.
“From both a cost and environmental standpoint, the future of aviation is electric,” added Reichow in the statement. “We invested in Impossible Aerospace because of their thoughtful and systematic approach to re-thinking the fundamentals of electric aircraft. Our first product, the US-1, outperforms existing solutions in a market crying out for reliable, domestically-manufactured long-duration aircraft, while validating the technology required to build aircraft of the future.”
Every US-1 will be built and assembled in the U.S. due to privacy and national security issues. And the US-1 will be available in late 2018 online.
