The Company Behind the Tease
Joby Aviation (JOBY) is the company at the center of The Crow’s Nest “Uber Air” promotion, the one teased as a “$10 startup” that “could climb to OVER $200.” It is an electric vertical takeoff and landing company, the leader of the Western eVTOL sector, and it has been at this longer than almost anyone else. Here is the story of what the company is and why it holds the position it does.
Joby was founded in 2009, which makes it a 17-year-old company at this point, an eternity in a sector where most competitors are younger and smaller. It went public in 2021 through a SPAC merger and now employs about 2,559 people. The founder and CEO is JoeBen Bevirt, described in the promo as a child prodigy with 427 patents to his name. That patent count is not decoration: it points at the engineering-first culture that defines the company.
What It Actually Builds
The aircraft is an all-electric six-propeller tiltrotor. It takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter, tilts its rotors forward, and flies like a plane at up to 200 miles per hour with a target range of about 100 miles. That configuration is the whole point of eVTOL: the flexibility of vertical lift combined with the efficiency of winged flight.
The company’s edge lives in three hard engineering problems most investors never see. The first is noise mitigation, keeping the aircraft far quieter than a helicopter so cities will actually accept it overhead. The second is battery thermal management, keeping the electric powertrain safe and durable over thousands of cycles. The third is redundant power architecture, building in backup so a single failure does not mean a crash. Solve those and you have a certifiable aircraft; fail on any one and the program stalls.
The Money and the Partners
The balance sheet is the strongest in the sector, with roughly $2.3 billion in cash and a market capitalization near $7.11 billion. That cash cushion matters because certification and early manufacturing are slow and expensive, and it lets Joby fund the process without constantly diluting shareholders.
The partner list is just as notable. Toyota has invested roughly $894 million and is co-building Joby’s manufacturing operation, bringing automotive production know-how to a company that needs to build aircraft at scale. Delta invested $60 million up front with up to $200 million more tied to milestones. Uber invested about $125 million and folded its Elevate division into Joby in 2020. The U.S. Air Force is testing the aircraft through its AFWERX Agility Prime program. That is a coalition few pre-profit startups can point to.
The Business Today and Tomorrow
Right now the company’s revenue comes mostly from Blade, the helicopter shuttle operator it owns. Q2 2026 revenue was $36.2 million, almost all of it helicopter shuttle flying rather than electric aircraft. Full-year 2026 revenue is expected around $115 million to $125 million. Our Joby Aviation earnings explainer breaks down that split.
The electric side of the business is still ahead of the company. The first commercial service is planned as a premium shuttle on airport routes, Manhattan to JFK and Downtown Dallas, at roughly $150 to $300 a seat, the “Uber Black Air” model. Today Joby flies about five aircraft with twelve more in production, a long way from the roughly 14,000 the promo’s $200 target would require. For the sector’s two-horse dynamic, our Joby vs Archer piece sets the leader against the challenger.
The Honest Read
Joby Aviation is a real company, arguably the most credible name in Western eVTOL. It has the longest track record, the deepest engineering bench, the strongest balance sheet, and the furthest FAA certification progress. What it does not yet have is the fleet or the revenue to justify the promo’s headline number. Understanding the difference between those two things is the whole job of the careful investor.
Where the Company Is Headed
The most important question about Joby is not what it is today but what it has to become. The plan runs through three gates. First, finish FAA Type Certification and open the first commercial routes, the premium airport shuttles the company has described. Second, scale manufacturing with Toyota’s help, turning the handful of aircraft in production today into a real fleet. Third, expand beyond the premium niche once the technology is proven and the cost per flight comes down.
Each gate is years of work, and the company is still at the first one. That is not a weakness; it is simply the honest shape of a hardware business, where progress is slower and more capital-hungry than software. The reason to follow Joby is that it is further along the path than any Western rival. The reason to stay patient is that the path is long, and the promo’s price target compresses all of it into a single headline that the company has not yet earned.
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