Skyfly Technologies, a developer of electric and hybrid-electric vertically capable aircraft, has raised £7.5 million in a seed round led by HICO Investment Group, with participation from Archangel. The investment takes the Axe, Skyfly’s two-seat electric aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like an aeroplane, from flying prototype to certified production aircraft in customers’ hands.
In July 2026 the United States Federal Aviation Administration’s MOSAIC reforms rewrote the Light Sport Aircraft rules, admitting electric propulsion, multi-motor designs and vertical take-off aircraft into a category built for private owners rather than airlines. The Axe was designed for that rulebook before it existed. New funding will complete the aircraft’s certification under the updated standards, grow the team and production capacity in the United Kingdom and the United States, and accelerate the hybrid propulsion system behind the Longbow, the unmanned, longer-range variant of the Axe aimed at defence and government customers.
Skyfly Technologies arrives at the raise with an existing flying prototype and operational experience. The Axe prototype has flown more than 100 times, completed Europe’s first airfield-to-airfield eVTOL flight and holds experimental flight permits in both the United Kingdom and the United States, where a dedicated flight test team has been flying since 2025. The aircraft has appeared at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2025 and 2026, and 61 private customers around the world are on the order book, with first deliveries planned for 2027.
The Axe is positioned as a modern, quiet, easy-to-fly two-seater with a projected running cost of around £70 per flying hour, compared with around £300 per hour for legacy light aircraft such as the Robinson R22 and Cessna 152. The Axe has a range of more than 100 miles, a flight time of 60 to 90 minutes, a cruising speed of 100mph and a 200kg payload, and requires no runway. The airframe is described as technology-agnostic, allowing new battery and motor technology to be fitted as it becomes available, and is built around aggressive weight reduction through advanced composite structures.
Alongside the Axe, Skyfly Technologies is developing the Longbow, a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft with a range of more than 400 miles and a 200kg payload, designed for cargo resupply, ISTAR, medevac and ship-to-shore logistics. Skyfly Technologies has been enrolled onto the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence’s heavy lift challenge, with both Axe and Longbow to be built at a 10,000 sq ft manufacturing and assembly facility in the United Kingdom.
This investment gives us the resources to take the Axe from a flying prototype to a certified aircraft in customers’ hands. The FAA’s MOSAIC rules have opened a route to market that simply did not exist for electric aircraft before, and the Axe was designed for exactly this category. HICO and Archangel understood that timing, and their backing lets us move at the pace the opportunity demands: completing certification and standing up series production. It also accelerates development and demonstration of the hybrid propulsion technology underpinning our defence products, at a moment when uncrewed aircraft have become central to how nations think about security. We believe the Axe’s range and useful load offer a genuinely unique capability, with a level of simplicity the market has not yet seen.
Longbow addresses a clear requirement for unmanned systems that can move meaningful payloads over significant distances without relying on a runway. Archangel invests exclusively in defence-first companies, and our backing of Skyfly reflects the potential we see in its technology to deliver mission necessary capability for the modern battlespace.
Electrification is revolutionising every industry that moves things, and aviation is next. A simpler electric drivetrain, with fewer moving parts and requiring a fraction of the maintenance, makes aircraft like the Axe practical for private owners for the first time and will enable the Longbow to transform logistics across domains. What Skyfly's team has achieved with so little is remarkable: a new aircraft, designed and built from scratch, flying and now leading the way through a brand-new certification pathway. We're excited to back a team with a big vision and relentless drive to execute.
