Electric aircraft maker Archer today announced two acquisitions to accelerate the development of its next-generation defense aircraft.
These acquisitions build on Archer’s December 2024 announcement of a strategic partnership with Anduril to co-develop hybrid, autonomous VTOL military aircraft—followed by $1.3 billion in capital raised to pursue both defense and commercial opportunities.
To help meet demand, Archer acquired a patent portfolio and hired critical employees from Overair, a spin-off of Karem Aircraft. Karem Aircraft developed and manufactured advanced fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft focused on the use of high-efficiency tiltrotors.
Archer also acquired key composite manufacturing assets and an approximately 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility from Mission Critical Composites, a specialized defense composite manufacturer in Southern California. These assets allow Archer to bring core composite fabrication capabilities in-house, supporting its defense program needs for rapid prototyping and iteration.
Both acquisitions come on the heels of industry momentum with the recent announcement of a budget request allocation by the Pentagon of $13.4 billion for autonomous military systems.