A startup led by SpaceX veterans now has a billion-dollar valuation and a longer runway to certify pilotless flight. Reliable Robotics said it has added $115 million to its Series D round — $90 million in equity led by returning investor Nimble Partners, plus a $25 million term loan from Silicon Valley Bank — pushing the round to $275 million, its valuation beyond $1 billion, and its total raised to more than $380 million, TechCrunch reports.
The Mountain View, California company, founded in 2017 by CEO Robert Rose, a former director of flight software at SpaceX who also worked at Tesla and Google, and CTO Juerg Frefel, another SpaceX veteran, has spent nearly a decade building autonomous flying technology that can be installed on existing aircraft. Its first autonomous test flight in 2019 put a Cessna 172 in the air with nobody in the pilot seat.
Certification is the whole game. Reliable is pursuing FAA approval on several linked fronts, starting with continuous autopilot engagement — a system that handles engine startup, taxiing, takeoff and landing while a pilot remains in the aircraft and works through a touchscreen. Rose expects certification for that first system in 18 to 24 months. "We continue to make steady progress and deliver evidence to the FAA and every day, we inch closer and closer," he said.
The new capital will expand Reliable's aircraft fleet, production facilities and engineering team, including a new radar research and development centre in Bothell, near Seattle, opening with about 25 employees as its Radar Center of Excellence for detect-and-avoid systems. Whether regulators certify flight-critical autonomy for commercial cargo will set the template for every autonomous aviation company that follows.
