Promise of early eVTOL ops in Dubai pushes Skyports fundraise to $110 million

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Two months after signing an exclusive agreement with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to build and operate vertiports for electric air taxis, UK-based Skyports has announced a Series C raise that should comfortably fund construction of its first four vertiports in the emirate and position it to expand into other markets.

ACS Group, an engineering and construction company based in Spain, led the $110 million USD round through its wholly owned infrastructure development and concessions business, Iridium Concesiones de Infraestructuras. Also contributing to the round was existing Skyports investor Groupe ADP, which operates the three major airports in Paris and multiple smaller aerodromes in that region.

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Skyports said the Series C round brings its total funding to date to around $141 million, a substantial haul for a startup focused on developing infrastructure for aircraft that are not yet commercially available. In an interview with The Air Current, Skyports CEO Duncan Walker suggested the successful fundraise signals growing confidence in the advanced air mobility market generally, yet acknowledged that the company’s agreement in Dubai was “absolutely fundamental” to the size of its raise.

“I don’t think we could have got the quantum of capital had we not had that contract,” Walker said. “I think more generally there was belief in the sector and there was quite a lot of institutional money that was interested in the cap raise … [but] the immediacy of the Dubai contract was a real help in getting that money.”

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