Overair Raises $145M To Fly Its Electric Aircraft Prototype

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Overair
Image courtesy of Overair

Santa Ana-based aircraft startup Overair has raised $145 million to develop and fly its flagship vehicle, a prototype electric airplane called Butterfly, by the second half of next year.

The investment was led by South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, which holds a 30% stake in Overair and has now poured a total of $170 million into the startup, according to TechCrunch. The funds specifically came from two of the conglomerate’s divisions, Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Systems, Overair said in a press release Tuesday.


Butterfly is part of a class of electric aircraft, known as eVTOL, that are capable of vertically taking off and landing and do not require a runway. Such aircraft require less space to operate and produce fewer or no carbon emissions, and have increasingly been floated for potential use as air taxis and for regional flights.

With the help of electric motors and battery packs provided by Hanwha, Overair said the six-seater Butterfly prototype should be ready to take flight by the second half of 2023. The startup was spun off in 2020 from Lake Forest-based, military-focused aerospace manufacturer Karem Aircraft.

“Our technology was meant to drop Navy SEALs into hot zones, and we’re going to use it for urban air mobility (UAM) so that you and I can go to a Rams game from Orange County,” Overair head of business development Josh Aronoff told TechCrunch.

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Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit
Photo: Relativity Space

The largest 3D-printed object to ever fly had liftoff yesterday as Long Beach-based Relativity Space launched its Terran 1 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Terran 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at around 7 p.m. PST March 22. It was Relativity’s third attempt at sending Terran 1 to the cosmos and the nighttime launch was quite a sight to behold. The clarity of the night sky was perfect to see the blue jets of flame cascading out of Terran 1’s nine Aeon 1 engines, all 3D-printed, as the rocket took off.

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Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Sports Stadiums Are Turning to Immersive Sound to Keep Fans Engaged
Photo: Edge Sound Research

In 2020, the Minnesota Twins experimented with a new technology that brought fans the ability to physically feel the sounds they were hearing in the stadium in the back of their seats as part of a new immersive way to experience baseball.

The tech was made by Riverside-based startup Edge Sound Research, which built a mobile lounge – basically, a small seating section equipped with its technology and on wheels to travel around the stadium – for Twins fans to experience what it calls “embodied audio” around Target field. It was a bid on the Twins’ part to keep fans more engaged during the game, and Edge Sound Research CEO Valtteri Salomaki said the Twins were impressed.

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B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


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