Joby Aviation is heading back to the capital markets, telling investors yesterday it plans to raise up to $1 billion through concurrent offerings of convertible senior notes and common stock as the Santa Cruz-area eVTOL maker tries to scale up for commercial service. The announcement hit after the closing bell and was quickly followed by a drop in the company's share price, underscoring how sensitive traders are as Joby moves from flight testing to prepping for daily passenger operations.
In a press release from Joby Aviation, the company said it expects aggregate proceeds of about $1 billion from the separate note and common-stock offerings, although both transactions remain subject to market and other conditions. The plan was also flagged by the San Jose Business Journal yesterday.
A preliminary prospectus on the SEC site shows the proposed convertible senior notes would mature on Feb. 15, 2032, and could be settled in cash, stock, or a mix of the two. The filing also walks through related hedging and capped-call transactions, and notes that Joby stock last traded at $13.47 on Tuesday, a detail that helps explain why news of fresh offerings got such a quick reaction.
Traders did not take long to weigh in. Investing.com reported that Joby's shares slid roughly 8% in after-hours trading once the deal was disclosed. For anyone tracking the increasingly crowded eVTOL space, the move is a reminder that funding needs can erase recent gains in a hurry.
Why Joby Says It Needs the Cash
Joby says the money is earmarked for certification work and further expansion of its manufacturing footprint as it gears up for commercial launches, according to the company release. The eVTOL builder has been ramping capacity in the United States, including signing for a roughly 700,000-square-foot facility in Dayton, Ohio, this month as part of a plan to push output toward four aircraft per month by 2027, according to reporting by Bloomberg.
Local Test Milestones and the Aircraft
Joby’s all-electric S4 aircraft has chalked up range milestones of about 150 miles, including a 154.6-mile test flight highlighted by the U.S. Air Force as part of the company’s Agility Prime work, according to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Local flights and airshow demos have kept Joby in the Bay Area conversation, with the Salinas appearances drawing attention for what was billed as the aircraft’s first U.S. public flight.
Investors and What to Watch Next
From here, investors will be parsing the fine print: the pricing and timing of each offering, the conversion price on the notes and whether the common-stock sale ultimately closes at full size. The preliminary prospectus on the SEC site lists Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Allen & Company and Goldman Sachs as book-running managers, and explains that the delta offering and the note offering are contingent on one another, a structure that could shape how much dilution long-term holders actually see.
Whether this capital raise clears Joby’s path to meaningful revenue will hinge on execution: hitting certification milestones, ramping production and locking in final deal terms that give the company room to run. For Bay Area engineers and manufacturing suppliers who have been working with Joby for years, the planned offerings represent both a sizable cash injection and another stress test of whether the electric air-taxi industry can live up to its own hype.
