Skyryse just joined the unicorn club. The El Segundo-based aviation automation startup closed a $300 million Series C led by Autopilot Ventures, pushing its valuation to $1.15 billion. The timing isn't coincidental - Skyryse is in the final stretch of Federal Aviation Administration certification for SkyOS, its universal flight control system that's already landed contracts with the U.S. military, emergency medical operators, and corporate aviation players. With over $605 million raised since 2016, the company is betting it can do for aircraft what touchscreens did for smartphones.
Skyryse just became aviation's newest unicorn, and the startup's timing couldn't be better. The El Segundo company announced Tuesday it closed a $300 million Series C led by Autopilot Ventures, catapulting its valuation to $1.15 billion just as it enters the home stretch of a multi-year Federal Aviation Administration certification process.
The round drew a who's-who of institutional investors - Fidelity Management & Research Company, ArrowMark Partners, Atreides Management, Baron Capital Group, Durable Capital Partners, and Qatar Investment Authority among them - signaling Wall Street's growing appetite for aviation automation plays. Since its 2016 founding, Skyryse has now pulled in more than $605 million in equity capital, according to TechCrunch.
What's got investors opening their checkbooks? Skyryse is building something the aviation industry has never really cracked - a universal operating system for aircraft that works like your iPhone. The company's SkyOS platform strips out the bewildering array of mechanical controls, gauges, and switches that have defined cockpits for decades and replaces them with simplified touchscreen interfaces backed by flight computers that handle the hairiest parts of flying.
This isn't full autonomy - a human pilot still runs the show. But SkyOS automates the stuff that kills people. Engine failures during hover, sketchy landings in bad weather, the kind of split-second decisions that separate experienced pilots from dead ones. The system essentially acts as a highly capable co-pilot that never gets tired, distracted, or overwhelmed.
