Joby Aviation acquires Xwing autonomy division, terms undisclosed

Joby Aviation announced the acquisition of the autonomy division of Xwing an industry leader in the development of autonomous technology for aviation.The acquisition brings Joby to the forefront of aviation autonomy and complements the Company’s 2021 acquisition of Inras GmbH, a company developing lightweight, high-performance radar sensor technology. Xwing’s comprehensive approach, and expertise in perception technology, system integration and certification, is expected to benefit both near-term piloted operations for Joby as well as fully autonomous operations in the future. The Company also expects the technology to play an important role in accelerating the execution of existing contract deliverables with the U.S. Department of Defense and expanding the potential for future contracts. JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO, said: “The aircraft we are certifying will have a fully-qualified pilot on board, but we recognize that a future generation of autonomous aircraft will play an important part in unlocking our vision of making clean and affordable aerial mobility as accessible as possible…The acquisition covers all of Xwing’s existing automation and autonomy technology activities and was paid for with Joby shares. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.