Want some optimism about the eVTOL market?
Talk to Stuart Simpson. The CEO of Vertical Aerospace may feel like the last man standing for eVTOLs in Europe, but he’s not worried about market consolidation — the nice way to say rivals are dropping like flies — or about Virgin Atlantic ditching his own firm for American rival Joby.
It’s been a tough few years for Vertical Aerospace, pushing back its own timelines for certification twice — it’s now set for 2028 — and struggling to win funding amid debt issues on its balance sheet. So when Stuart Simpson took over as CEO from Vertical Aerospace founder Stephen Fitzpatrick last year, he had his work cut out for him.
After a bit of restructuring, at the end of last year, the company announced $50 million in funding, followed by another $90m round this year; Simpson says the investment is enough to keep Vertical Aerospace running through 2025 and beyond. Certification is still on track for 2028.
Even the announcement earlier this month that former partner Virgin Atlantic was ditching Vertical Aerospace in favour of rival Joby for a UK rollout doesn’t concern Simpson — nor surprise him. (And it shouldn’t have surprised anyone: Delta owns a big chunk of Virgin and has invested in Joby.)
eVTOL shakeout
Vertical Aerospace is of course not alone in wobbling towards the finish line — or the starting line, depending on how you look at it.
Two other European urban air mobility (UAM) companies also hit financial turbulence at the end of 2024: Lilium and Volocopter. After declaring insolvency, the former found a funding consortium just before Christmas, but that deal has since dissolved and Lilium is presumed to now be shut for good. Volocopter suffered a similar lack of funding, and has since been snapped up by Diamond Aircraft, which is owned by China’s Wanfeng Group.
What happened? “There’s been a real shakeout over the last six months, and it’s driven by two things: physics and funding,” says Simpson. By physics, he means the right design. He’s not convinced by multicopter designs such as Volocopter, and while he had generous praise of Lilium’s engineering and design, he notes that batteries haven’t come along fast enough to enable it to work. “Whereas we have something that works… and funding is flowing to those winners.”
And by that, he means Vertical Aerospace as well as American rivals Archer, Joby and Beta. While money is disappearing for some companies — and seemingly in Europe — Simpson says $1.8 billion has been invested in the wider, global market in the last six months. “This is not a market that’s disappearing, this is one that’s… doubling down.”
Vertical Aerospace’s cheaper road to eVTOL
Only a small slice of that money has flown to Vertical Aerospace. That doesn’t worry Simpson for two reasons: first, Vertical Aerospace operates more cheaply, and second, more moneyed rivals lack the certification clarity available to his own company in the UK — yes, a CEO of an innovation company is pinning some of its success on regulators.
On the regulatory front, Simpson says Vertical Aerospace has benefited from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) linking its certification with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), so certifying with one means certification with the other.
And beyond the fact that EASA certification covers all of Europe, rather than just the UK, EASA issued guidance in 2016 about how to certify one of these new aircraft, which means companies developing them know exactly how to proceed. “You can’t do that with the FAA, they still haven’t quite agreed what they’re doing,” he says. “As a business, what you need is certainty and clarity, so you can tell the engineers — you can’t do that with the FAA. It’s a very opaque, challenging process.”
Earlier this year, the FAA signaled that eVTOL certification wouldn’t happen until 2027; Joby and Archer are both targeting commercial launches this year or early next in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, respectively.
Vertical Aerospace has previously said it expects to certify by 2028, and Simpson says that timeline remains on track — that means that despite any assistance from the CAA’s clarity, the company isn’t likely to win certification any earlier than American rivals.
eVTOL safety as a selling point?
Beyond certification itself, Vertical Aerospace points to EASA’s safety standard, referred to as 10⁻⁹ — or one in a billion — which is the acceptable probability of catastrophic failure per flight hour. “Our aircraft is being certified to the safest standards in the world,” he says. “We think that is incredibly important when creating a new market, creating a new industry.”
Now, when it comes to larger craft, the FAA and EASA share that safety standard. But the FAA has departed from its European peer when it comes to eVTOLs, with a “safety continuum” approach that ranges from 10⁻6 to 10⁻⁹ depending on where the craft is operating and passenger capacity.
None of this suggests these rival eVTOLs aren’t just as safe, but the gap between regulators could raise challenges down the road when attempting to bring these aircraft to markets outside the US. That’s what Simpson believes, anyway: “I think this incredible safety standard of our aircraft means we are the only globally safe aircraft.”
He argues that city and national authorities will favour a “safer” aircraft, but Sergio Cecutta of SMG Consulting disagrees and doesn’t think there’s a safety market advantage the way Simpson does. “I do not see regulators preventing US vehicles from certifying, especially in a European market with so few players that will enter the market later than US OEMs,” he adds. “We see early markets like UAE, KSA, Korea, Japan and even UK certifying the US vehicles without restrictions.”
Vertical Aerospace: a British business model
Of course, none of that matters if you can’t stay in business long enough to get certified. Simpson says money is no longer a problem now that those balance sheet challenges have been solved, opening the door to investment.
But he also points to how little Vertical Aerospace has spent to date — there’s an industry assumption that bringing one of these machines to market will cost $1.5 to $2 billion dollars. Simpson says Vertical Aerospace will do it cheaper. “We’ve spent $350 million in the last three and a bit years — a billion dollars less than everyone else. That’s not a rounding error, that’s serious, serious money.”
No wonder he’s so optimistic.
