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Archer Aviation doubles down on defense aircraft with $300M raise

Escalating geopolitical tensions and a new administration with a hawkish defense agenda has led many startups to embrace dual-use strategies to secure

The company, which went public in September 2021 in a special purpose acquisition merger, on Tuesday announced a $300 million equity raise from institutional investors like Blackrock and Wellington, bringing Archer’s total funding to around $3.36 billion. As part of that program, Archer signed an exclusive deal with weapons manufacturer Anduril to jointly develop a hybrid gas-and-electric-powered VTOL aircraft for critical defense applications. “As we dug into the work we were doing on the defense front, we realized that the market was a lot larger than we initially expected, both in terms of scope as well as timing,” Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch.

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