Welcome, JetPack Aviation, to the Rosecliff Portfolio!
JetPack Aviation has been leading the micro personal vertical take off and landing (VTOL) industry for the past 10 years. JetPack Aviation designed and built the world’s first portable JetPack and successfully flew around the Statue of Liberty in 2015.
The JetPack, JB-12, is capable of rapidly lifting a 220 lb pilot thousands of feet into the air which has a speed of over 155 mph (250 km/h). CEO David Mayman himself has demonstrated the personal aerial jet pack numerous times, and it has been certified by the FAA. The company has landed a CARADA agreement with the U.S. Navy Special Forces for use in short-distance troop transportation.
Mayman has been interviewed and featured around the world, flying his JetPack for excited fans in Monaco, Dubai, Sydney. His fascinating journey of building the world’s first true turbine JetPack is chronicled by director Gregory Read in the documentary, Own The Sky. The groundbreaking technology has been featured at formula one races, on the BBC and by the New York Times
After completing Y-Combinator, and closing their $2M funding round in November 2019, JetPack Aviation is working on developing a new aircraft called The Speeder. The Speeder looks like a ‘flying motorcycle’, but operates very differently than you’d expect. The Speeder will revolutionize the way paramedics reach their patients and the way the military insert and extract personnel. Mayman and his team plan to only build 20 recreational speeders, with the rest of the product sold to the military, other branches of government, and emergency service companies. The final product will even have autonomous flight control options.
Part of the reason the Speeder is more viable near-term than other VTOL designs is that it will rely on turbine propulsion, rather than battery-based flight systems. This is because, in Mayman’s opinion, “current battery energy density is just too low for most electrically powered VTOLs to be truly practical,” and that timelines optimistically for that to change are in the five to 10-year range. The Speeder, by comparison, should feasibly be able to provide quick cargo transportation for emergency services and military (its first planned uses before moving on to the consumer market) in a much shorter period. — TechCrunch
Rosecliff is thrilled to have the opportunity to back such an exciting leap forward in VOTL flight alongside our co-investors: Draper Associates, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, YC, Cathexis Ventures.
