BUYING REVENUE, CLEARANCES AND PRODUCTION CAPACITY

Joby Aviation, Inc. (NYSE: JOBY) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Resonant Sciences, a Dayton, Ohio-based defence technology company, for approximately $500 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027 subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory reviews, and will be funded with approximately $450 million in cash and $50 million in Joby common stock, with the price per share fixed at signing. Certain Resonant employee stockholders will receive part of their consideration in Joby shares, retaining an ongoing economic interest.

What Joby is acquiring is a functioning business rather than a technology portfolio. Founded in 2015, Resonant employs approximately 250 people and designs, manufactures and delivers advanced radio frequency and mission systems for United States national security customers, with established capabilities across advanced sensing, electronic countermeasures, communications and autonomous systems, and a position as a global leader in low-observability technologies, structures and subsystems. Revenue increased approximately 40 per cent year on year to more than $100 million over the last twelve months, with the company operating at high-teens adjusted EBITDA margins in recent periods. During the first half of 2026 it secured more than three times the bookings recorded in the same period of 2025, with backlog more than doubling year on year.

Two assets in that description are difficult to build and cannot be bought quickly. Resonant holds a long-standing Facility Security Clearance and accredited facilities, with more than 90 per cent of its team members holding security clearances, a cleared technical workforce being among the hardest constraints in the United States defence sector, and one that takes years to assemble irrespective of capital available. Its electronics, apertures and radomes are qualified across more than 20 commercial and defence airframes, qualification being similarly time-consuming to obtain.

A STRUCTURE THAT PROTECTS THE CERTIFICATION PROGRAMME

On closing, Resonant will become Joby’s dedicated defence business and will continue to operate under its own name, led by Co-Founder and Chief Executive J. Micah North. Joby’s existing defence initiatives (built on more than a decade of work with defence and intelligence customers, and including dual-use turbine-electric and hydrogen-electric aircraft and a dual-use autonomy stack) will be consolidated within the new unit. Joby states explicitly that housing this work within Resonant will allow its commercial aviation organisation to maintain its primary focus on certifying, manufacturing and commercialising the electric air taxi.

That separation is a deliberate answer to a real risk. An eVTOL developer in the final stage of type certification cannot afford to divide the attention of its engineering and certification organisation, and defence programmes operate on different timelines, requirements and security constraints. Ring-fencing the defence business under existing leadership keeps the two apart while allowing technology to flow between them. JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and Chief Executive of Joby Aviation, said Resonant had built an exceptional business combining advanced technology, vertically integrated production and deep customer trust, and that what made the combination especially compelling was how closely aligned the teams were, having worked with North and his team for several years.

North said demand for advanced defence technology was growing rapidly and that joining Joby gave his team access to additional engineering depth, aircraft platforms, autonomy technology and production expertise, allowing it to move faster for existing customers and pursue opportunities neither company could address alone. He said Resonant’s name, leadership, people and customer commitments would remain in place, and that what changed was the scale of what the business could build and deliver. Rodrigo Brumana, Chief Financial Officer of Joby Aviation, said Resonant had strong visibility into future revenue supported by a growing backlog, generated healthy adjusted EBITDA margins, and represented a strong strategic fit as Joby built out its defence business.

THE PATTERN: TWO EVTOL DEVELOPERS, FOUR DAYS APART

The transaction is the second of its kind announced within four days. On 10 August, Archer Aviation announced definitive agreements to acquire Boeing’s Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid subsidiaries, with Insitu alone contributing more than $200 million in annual revenue against Archer’s own quarterly revenue of $5.0 million, and with Boeing taking a strategic stake in Archer. Both transactions follow the same logic: an electric air taxi developer, pre-revenue at scale and still working through type certification, acquires an established and profitable defence business with existing government programmes, and houses it as a separate unit so the certification programme is not disturbed.

The convergence is worth naming because it describes where the sector’s economics have arrived. Commercial eVTOL revenue remains contingent on certification, infrastructure and regulatory frameworks that are not yet complete, while defence demand for autonomous and lower-cost aircraft is immediate and funded. Acquiring a defence business converts a company from one awaiting a market into one already serving a different market with related technology — and does so using equity valued on the promise of the first market. Joby states that an early focus of the combination will be integrating its dual-use autonomy stack with Resonant’s RF sensing and signal-processing capabilities, accelerating development of software-defined autonomous systems for defence customers.

A MILLION SQUARE FEET IN THE BIRTHPLACE OF AVIATION

Resonant operates approximately 105,000 square feet of engineering, integration, testing and manufacturing space across seven buildings in the Dayton area, with a further 125,000 square foot facility under construction that will more than double its footprint and expand capacity for RF testing, advanced composites and large-scale machining. It also has engineering and manufacturing facilities in Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, Colorado and North Carolina. Together with Joby’s 768,000 square feet of facilities in Ohio, the combined company will hold approximately one million square feet of manufacturing, integration and testing space across the Dayton region – a concentration Joby expects to establish a major hub for advanced aviation and defence technology in the birthplace of aviation, helping attract aerospace talent and industry partners to the region.