Joby builds defense muscle with $500M buy of Resonant Sciences
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Joby Aviation is buying defense contractor Resonant Sciences in a $500 million deal.
The big picture: Joby's commercial aircraft business will remain focused on electric air-taxi initiatives while Resonant will become its dedicated defense unit.
The intrigue: Much of what Resonant is up to is kept hush-hush — or is cloaked in Pentagon-ese. The company, employing around 250 people, advertises radomes and antennas, aircraft testing and stealth designs.
- Its website is dotted with images of an anechoic chamber as well as the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter and Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber.
What they're saying: CEO JoeBen Bevirt tells Axios the acquisition will provide the company a "deep bench of defense expertise" while also boosting its presence across the U.S. (Almost all of Resonant's employees have security clearances.)
- "This gives us the ability to do projects that Resonant couldn't do alone and Joby couldn't do alone, but together we can accomplish," Bevirt says.
- "Joby already has a more than 700,000 square-foot footprint in Ohio. Resonant is doubling its footprint. Combined, that will give us roughly 1,000,000 square-feet of space in Dayton."
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just east of the city, is home to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and Air Force Materiel Command.
Follow the money: The deal, expected to close in the first half of next year, will be funded via $450 million in cash and $50 million in common stock.
Catch up quick: Joby has for years worked with the defense and intelligence communities. It flew an autonomous vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft it's developing alongside L3Harris Technologies for military applications for the first time last year.
- "We are continuing to make excellent progress on that program, excellent progress on our autonomy work with the Air Force as well as other customers," Bevirt says. "And then there's additional work that we haven't talked about publicly, but we think is very synergistic."
