Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital and NEOM have co-led ZeroAvia’s latest fundraising round, according to a news release.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Alaska Airlines, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, AP Ventures and Amazon Climate Pledge Fund have also participated in the investment.
ZeroAvia is developing hydrogen-electric aircraft engines for commercial aviation. The investment will enable the company to accelerate certification of its first engine.
In conjunction with the investment, Airbus and ZeroAvia have agreed to collaborate on certification approaches for hydrogen power systems. The companies intend to work together on critical technical areas, including liquid hydrogen fuel storage, flight and ground testing of fuel cell propulsion systems, and development of hydrogen refueling infrastructure and operations.
The investment will support ZeroAvia’s first product – ZA600 – through to certification. The company recently completed the first stage of flight testing of the prototype ZA600 and is moving to complete design work ahead of certification, targeting 2025 entry-in-service to support up to 20 seat aircraft.
The larger engine program, the ZA2000, is for a 2-5.4 MW modular powertrain designed to support larger commercial aircraft applications. The company is working on retrofitting a Dash 8 400 76-seat testbed demonstrator provided by Alaska Airlines, with a view to first flight testing with a full size engine in 2024.
