Joby Aviation Creates First Flying Taxi for Commercialization

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Today’s Highlights:

• ✈️Joby Aviation Creates First Flying Taxi for Commercialization🚕

• 👩‍💼Mental Health Startup Heard Raises $15M for Financial Tech Development💰

Getting Closer to Flying Cars and Ridesharing in the Air with Joby Aviation

As far as we can tell, motorized taxis have existed since the 1890s and started becoming popular around the 1920s after General Motors, Ford, and John D. Hertz jumped on the bandwagon, introducing the renowned yellow cab. We have come a long way since then, with not only taxis but also ridesharing accommodations.

One thing that has remained the same, however, is that every one of these trips takes place on the ground. Can you imagine calling a taxi or hailing an Uber that flies, giving you a traffic-free, thus a stress-free ride? Well, that is what Joby Aviation is all about!

First Commercialized eVTOL

Achievable with the help of a $180 million injection from investor Baillie Gifford and almost $400 million from Toyota, Joby Aviation has introduced its first eVTOL*.

Joby’s first production prototype has already received a special airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), allowing flight testing, and making Joby one step closer to launching commercial flying taxis.

*eVTOL: Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, sometimes referred to as air taxis or flying taxis, powered by batteries.

FAA Certification

Joby CEO JoeBen Bevirt stated that they started building the aircraft in 2017 and have flown over 30,000 miles on pre-production prototype aircraft since 2019. The aforementioned FAA certification is a huge step forward for Joby, preparing them for the next stage of the certification process, the type certification.

The type certification entails approval of Joby’s aircraft design and component parts from the FAA. By achieving said certification, Joby’s design will be deemed suitable in terms of airworthiness and noise by the agency’s standards. According to Bevirt, Joby is nearing the third stage out of five necessary to achieve FAA’s type certification.

Once the type certification is earned, Joby will only need to attain the production certification to produce an aircraft suitable for commercial and passenger use. The production certification allows Joby to mass produce eVTOLs as long as it complies with FAA’s design standards.

Air Taxi

According to Joby, they have accepted the Part 135 air carrier certificate required to create on-demand commercial air taxi operations in May 2022.

Further pursuing this path, Joby has made an Agility Prime contract with the U.S. Air Force worth $131 million, which obliges their aircraft to be deployed at Edwards Air Force Base in 202

Joby plans to reproduce their aircraft at their pilot manufacturing facility for further certification testing. Once fully FAA-approved, Joby will mass replicate their aircraft for customer applications in the same facility.

Joby Goes to Japan

Further pursuing this path, Joby is collaborating with Toyota and Japanese Airline ANA to launch an air taxi service in Japan that can connect to ground-based transportation.

Bevirt has also stated that the company is working closely with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, suggesting that Japan might be the first few locations Joby plans to commercialize their air taxi operations at.

After closely working together with Toyota as a component supplier as well as an investor, Joby announced that Toyota Motor North America CEO and president Tetsuo “Ted” Ogawa had joined Joby’s board of directors. It seems Joby and Toyota’s relationship can only further deepen from here.

Joby has revealed that they plan to commercialize an aerial rideshare service by 2025, and we’ll have to see where this service will be first available.

Startup Heard Expands Financial Tech Tools for Mental Health Professionals

During the pandemic, the demand for both in-person and online mental healthcare rose quite significantly. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this occurrence potentially made mental health professionals, like everybody else, struggle with burnout or have difficulty managing their time and energy.

A host of startups has realized that the possibility of this happening is far from slim, including but not limited to Heard, a Seattle-based financial software and services company.

Supporting Mental Health Professionals

Founded by Andrew Riesen and Victoria Li in 2019, Heard started out as a team that acted as a “Bumble for Therapists”, connecting patients with practitioners.

They soon realized that therapists were already able to acquire clients without much help, however, and as a result, focused on providing financial services for mental health professionals instead.

At the moment, the 29-employee team offers solo practitioners and group practices with booking, payroll, and tax workflow services for $199 per month for the former and $299 per month for the latter. Heard provides discounts for annual subscriptions.

Funding and Expansion

After operating with a seed funding of $1.3 million in 2021 and a Series A funding of $10 million last year, they have raised $15 million in a new funding round they call “Series A-2.”

“Series A-2” was led by Headline alongside GGV, Footwork, Founders Co-Op, Act One, and Heron Rock. The funds will be used to scale and automate Heard’s products and connect with banking and retirement partners.

Following the fundraising, Heard has hired Kristin Kaiser Mulligen as chief operating officer, Brandon Wolf as head of support, and Brooke Skinner as vice president of finance and data, adding more to the employee pool.

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