Holland & Knight represented Joby Aviation Inc. (NYSE: JOBY), a leading electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft manufacturer, on its acquisition of the autonomy division of Xwing Inc., an industry leader in developing autonomous aviation application software. The transaction was announced on June 4.
The acquisition included Xwing's existing automation and autonomy technology activities and was paid for with Joby Aviation shares. Xwing's comprehensive approach and expertise in perception technology, system integration and certification are expected to benefit both near-term piloted operations for Joby Aviation as well as fully autonomous operations in the future. Joby Aviation also expects the technology to play an important role in accelerating the execution of existing contract deliverables with the U.S. Department of Defense and expanding the potential for future contracts.
Headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, Joby Aviation is a transportation company developing an all-electric, vertical takeoff and landing air taxi.
Based in Concord, California, Xwing has been flying autonomous aircraft since 2020 through the use of its in-house-developed Superpilot software. Superpilot enables safe, uncrewed operations, supervised from the ground, and is the world's first fully autonomous gate-to-gate flight technology. Xwing became the first company to receive an official project designation for the certification of a large unmanned aerial system (UAS) from the Federal Aviation Administration in April 2023 and the first to receive an Air Force Military Flight Release in 2024.
With the successful completion of this deal, Holland & Knight continues to be a leading adviser in aviation and technology transactions, including in the area of autonomous transportation. Holland & Knight's representation of Joby Aviation was led by Partners Simone Collins, Eric Wechselblatt and Joel Roberson and Associates Fernando Tevez Butler and Diana Andrade.
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