Archer Aviation

Archer Aviation is an American aerospace company that designs and builds electric and hybrid-electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft. Its two main programs are Midnight, a piloted, all-electric four-passenger air taxi that the company is working to certify with the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and a dual-use autonomous hybrid-electric VTOL platform developed with defense technology company Anduril Industries, whose defense variant is called Thunder and whose commercial variant is called Halo.^[1][2] Archer is headquartered in San Jose, California, and its Class A common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ACHR.^[1][3]

Archer matters to the AI field mainly through its autonomy work. The Thunder and Halo aircraft are designed to fly without a pilot, with Anduril integrating the AI flight software and command-and-control infrastructure through its Lattice platform while Archer supplies the airframe, batteries, hybrid powertrain, and manufacturing.^[2][10] Archer also plans to develop the Hawthorne Municipal Airport site it acquired in December 2025 into what it calls an innovation hub for "next-generation AI-powered aviation technologies," and it lists Palantir as a partner for building what the companies describe as an AI foundation for aviation.^[1][12]

Key facts

Scroll sideways for more →

History

Founding and public listing

Archer was incorporated in October 2018.^[1] Chief executive Adam Goldstein is described in company materials as Archer's founder and CEO.^[2] Brett Adcock, who had founded the hiring marketplace Vettery and sold it to the Adecco Group for about $100 million in 2018, co-founded the company; he later left and in 2022 started Figure, a humanoid robot startup, which he initially bootstrapped with $100 million of funding.^[4]

In January 2021 Archer signed a purchase agreement with United Airlines covering the conditional purchase of up to $1.0 billion worth of aircraft, with an option for another $500 million; United later made a $10 million pre-delivery payment.^[1] The following month Archer agreed to merge with the special purpose acquisition company Atlas Crest Investment Corp. The business combination closed on September 16, 2021, at which point Atlas Crest was renamed Archer Aviation Inc. and the company's shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.^[1][5]

For manufacturing, Archer built a high-volume facility in Covington, Georgia, funded in part by a $65 million credit agreement with Synovus Bank signed in October 2023, and works with automaker Stellantis, a longtime strategic partner and investor. A memorandum of understanding with Stellantis subsidiary FCA US LLC, effective November 1, 2024, set out additional terms of the planned manufacturing relationship, although as of Archer's annual report for 2025 a definitive agreement had not yet been executed.^[1] Final assembly of early Midnight builds takes place on a "golden manufacturing line" at one of Archer's Silicon Valley facilities, with lessons applied to the Georgia plant.^[1]

Defense program and the Anduril partnership

Archer has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense since 2021 through the Air Force's AFWERX program, and in August 2024 it delivered its first Midnight aircraft to the U.S. Air Force for evaluation under a contract valued at up to $142 million.^[1][5]

On December 12, 2024, Archer announced an exclusive agreement with Anduril, the defense company founded by Palmer Luckey, to jointly develop a next-generation aircraft for defense applications. The companies' first planned product was a hybrid-propulsion VTOL aircraft targeting a potential program of record from the Department of Defense. Alongside the partnership Archer created an Archer Defense program and raised $430 million in additional equity from existing investors Stellantis and United Airlines and new investors including Wellington Management and 2PointZero, an Abu Dhabi investment holding company, bringing its total financing to nearly $2 billion.^[5][6] In February 2025 it raised a further $300 million from institutional investors including BlackRock, money the company said would mainly accelerate the Anduril work.^[7]

The partnership has also pulled Archer's components into other defense programs: in November 2025 the company announced that Anduril and EDGE Group had chosen Archer's electric powertrain for their Omen autonomous air vehicle, the first third-party adoption of Archer technology in the defense sector.^[1]

The jointly developed aircraft was unveiled in July 2026 as the Thunder and Halo platform (see below). In an August 3, 2026 post on X, Goldstein called the Anduril relationship "the best partnership we have" and described the dual-use strategy: "Archer will manufacture the core platform, which can be sold for non-military use cases, but that same platform will also be missionized by Anduril and then sold to the military."^[11]

Los Angeles expansion

On May 15, 2025, Archer was selected as the Official Air Taxi Provider of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA. The exclusive partnership contemplates using Midnight to carry VIPs, fans, and stakeholders during the 2028 Los Angeles Games, with a planned vertiport network including the stadium in Inglewood, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles International Airport, Hollywood, Orange County, and Santa Monica.^[8]

On December 8, 2025, Archer completed the acquisition of the lease agreements, operating rights, and development rights of Hawthorne Municipal Airport near Los Angeles International Airport for total consideration of $127.1 million, along with an option to buy 75 percent of the airport's fixed-base operator business for $25 million. The company plans to make the airport the operational hub of its Los Angeles network, including for the LA28 Games, and an innovation hub for AI-powered aviation technologies.^[1] In the U.S. more broadly, Archer has applied to participate in the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), a White House initiative to accelerate air taxi deployments, in partnership with cities across California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and New York.^[1]

Aircraft

Midnight

Midnight is a piloted electric air taxi designed to carry up to four passengers, with 12 engines and propellers in what Archer calls a 12-tilt-6 rotor configuration, engineered for rapid back-to-back trips across cities. Archer's published figures list a maximum range of 100 miles and a maximum speed of 150 mph, and the company says the aircraft is designed to be quiet enough not to be heard from the ground when flying overhead.^[8][12]

Midnight is being certified with the FAA under a type certification process that the FAA divides into four phases. Archer finalized its certification basis with the FAA in June 2024, closing the second phase, and in its annual report filed March 2, 2026 said it was substantially complete with the third phase (agreement on the means of compliance) and had begun the piloted test flight phase of the program in June 2025 in preparation for type inspection authorization testing.^[1] The company's website describes Archer as the first air taxi company to close Phase 3 of the FAA's four-phase process.^[12]

The United Arab Emirates leads Archer's international deployment plans under its Launch Edition program. Following hot-weather flight testing in the UAE in 2025, the UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority announced on May 7, 2026 that it had transitioned Midnight into a Restricted Type Certificate program, a streamlined pathway toward limited initial commercial operations; Archer said it was the first eVTOL manufacturer to move onto an RTC track with the regulator. Midnight is planned to enter service in Abu Dhabi with Abu Dhabi Aviation, Archer's local operating partner, with support from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.^[1][9]

Thunder and Halo

Thunder and Halo are the two variants of the clean-sheet, dual-use autonomous VTOL aircraft platform Archer developed with Anduril. Anduril unveiled Thunder, the defense variant, at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 20, 2026, as a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft intended to operate as a loyal wingman alongside combat helicopters. Archer announced Halo, the commercial variant, two days later on July 22, 2026. The two variants share the same airframe, series hybrid-electric powertrain, and core systems, with payloads configured per mission.^[2][10]

The platform uses two tilting optimum-speed rotors that vary rotor speed across flight regimes to cut power demand, fuel burn, and noise, and it can either self-deploy over long distances or be packed into a standard shipping container for transport by air, road, rail, or sea.^[2] New Atlas reported specifications including a top speed of 278 knots (320 mph), a range of 800 nautical miles (920 miles), and an operating ceiling above 18,000 feet; the aircraft had not yet flown in its final configuration, so these are design figures.^[10] Archer designed the airframe, battery architecture, hybrid-electric powertrain, and rotor system and is responsible for high-volume production using commercial supply chains, while Anduril contributes the AI flight software, defense systems, and command-and-control infrastructure via its Lattice platform.^[10]

For Halo, Archer is targeting commercial markets that need heavy payloads moved quickly over long distances without a runway, including offshore energy resupply, heavy freight, humanitarian and medical cargo, and maritime operations. Goldstein called the platform "the most sophisticated vertical lift aircraft platform ever developed."^[2] Archer named Marubeni Aerospace Corporation, a subsidiary of the aerospace and mobility arm of Japanese trading company Marubeni, as Halo's strategic launch partner, with the partnership covering joint market research, use case identification, and future introduction of the aircraft.^[2]

Partnerships

Beyond Anduril, Stellantis, and United Airlines, Archer lists a broad set of commercial partners for Midnight's planned networks: Southwest Airlines (exploring a potential network across its California hubs), Soracle (a joint venture of Japan Airlines and Sumitomo Corporation leading planned operations in Japan), Korean Air (introduction of eVTOL flight in Korea), Abu Dhabi Aviation (Launch Edition operator in the UAE), Etihad Aviation Training (pilot and crew training), The Helicopter Company (Saudi Arabia), InterGlobe Enterprises (parent of IndiGo, exploring service in India), and Ethiopian Airlines (a Launch Edition partner for African markets).^[12] Infrastructure and venue partners include Signature Aviation, Atlantic Aviation, SoFi Stadium, Hard Rock Stadium, and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, which is developing what Archer describes as the UAE's first hospital-based vertiport.^[12] Archer's listed technology partners include Palantir, described as "building the AI foundation for next-generation aviation and air mobility technologies," NVIDIA, for integrating the NVIDIA IGX Thor computing platform into future iterations of Archer's aircraft programs, and Starlink, for in-flight connectivity.^[12]

See also

• Anduril Industries
• Anduril Thunder
• Palmer Luckey
• Humanoid robot

References

1. ^Archer Aviation Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, filed March 2, 2026.
2. ^Introducing Halo: Archer's Commercial Variant of Dual-Use Autonomous VTOL Aircraft Platform Developed With Anduril, Archer Aviation, July 22, 2026.
3. ^Archer Aviation (ACHR) stock overview, Stock Analysis, accessed August 5, 2026.
4. ^Archer's co-founder is bootstrapping an all-purpose humanoid robot, TechCrunch, September 22, 2022.
5. ^Archer teams up with Anduril and raises $430 million to build defense aircraft, TechCrunch, December 12, 2024.
6. ^Archer Announces Strategic Partnership With Anduril to Develop Hybrid VTOL Military Aircraft; Raises An Additional $430M, Archer Aviation, December 12, 2024.
7. ^Archer Aviation doubles down on defense aircraft with fresh $300M, TechCrunch, February 11, 2025.
8. ^Archer Selected as the Official Air Taxi Provider of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA, LA28, May 15, 2025.
9. ^UAE Regulator And Archer Move To Streamlined Approach for Certifying Midnight in the UAE, Archer Aviation via Business Wire, May 7, 2026.
10. ^Archer Aviation debuts Halo autonomous VTOL, Thunder's commercial twin, New Atlas, August 4, 2026.
11. ^Adam Goldstein on X: "The Anduril partnership has been the best partnership we have...", August 3, 2026.
12. ^Midnight, Archer Aviation, accessed August 5, 2026.
13. ^Company, Archer Aviation, accessed August 5, 2026.