Skyworks Aeronautics Corp. announced a $100-million investment commitment from GEM Global Yield LLC SCS, a Luxembourg-based private alternative investment group. Under the agreement, GEM will provide Skyworks Aeronautics with a Share Subscription Facility of up to $100 million for a 36-month term following a public listing of the Skyworks Aeronautics common stock.

Skyworks Aeronautics will control the timing and maximum amount of drawdowns under this facility and has no minimum drawdown obligation. Concurrent with a public listing of Skyworks Aeronautics shares, Skyworks Aeronautics will issue warrants to GEM to purchase up to 3% of the common stock of the company.

Skyworks Aeronautics will use the funds to move forward with the commercialization of its gyroplane aircraft, including the eGyro electric air taxi geared towards urban air mobility and the 400 mph VertiJet VTOL aircraft that competes directly with helicopters, but at a much higher speed, longer range and lower operating cost.

Artist’s concept of eGyro. Skyworks Aeronautics envisions a speed of 100-150 mph; 2-4 passengers plus a pilot; and 30-100 miles of range. Source: Skyworks Aeronautics

The core of Skyworks’ technology is sustained autorotative flight. Autorotation is the ability of a free-spinning rotor to generate lift. For a Gyroplane in forward flight, as shown in the diagram below, the unpowered rotor creates lift through autorotation, with forward thrust provided by an engine-driven propeller(s) or by jet engine(s), much like an airplane. Larger and/or faster Skyworks Aeronautics Gyroplanes have airplane wings.

Source: Skyworks Aeronautics

Gyroplanes are much less complicated than helicopters—which in turn are far less complicated than tilt-rotor aircraft. Thus, next to airplanes, gyroplanes and gyrodynes are the least complex of all, says Skyworks Aeronautics.

Source: Skyworks Aeronautics

This agreement follows Skyworks Aeronautics’ recent announcement of its electric aircraft collaboration with Mobius.energy to produce the eGyro. The Skyworks Aeronautics eGyro has been designed to leverage the fundamental safety and exceptional performance advantages of a gyroplane to create an eVTOL system that provides a practical, affordable, and scalable approach to intra- and inter-city passenger and air cargo transport.

With a proprietary autorotating main rotor design delivering exceptional performance and unprecedented safety, the eGyro overcomes a key limitation of many of today’s existing eVTOL system concepts. Mobius.energy developed an advanced battery module architecture optimized for electric aircraft.

Mobius’ battery module provides low total cost of ownership, safe battery operation, high energy density, fast charging (<10 minutes), rapid cooling, and a high cell-to-pack mass ratio of >0.8, all enabled by a novel lightweight super thermal conductor (STC). STC has 25 times better thermal conductivity than copper and is 30-50% lighter than aluminum. STC prevents thermal runaway through its rapid heat dissipation.

Mobius’ battery module architecture is cell type agnostic and platform independent. It can achieve the highest module-level specific energy for a given cell and can accommodate any new cell development. The current prototype achieved specific energy at 230 Wh/kg using the conventional 21700 cylindrical cells with a specific energy of 260 Wh/kg.