Another advanced air mobility company is seeking public stock market support. Colorado-based XTI Aircraft, developer of the TriFan 600 VTOL aircraft, is merging with Palo Alto, California-based real-time location system manufacturer Inpixon to become a publicly traded company.
Inpixon has a market capitalization of $9.7 million, and its shares were trading this morning at 24 cents, down 98 percent since 2017. Merger documents give XTI an independently assessed enterprise value of $252 million to $343 million.
XTI claims to have booked 700 “pre-orders” for the aircraft worth an estimated $7.1 billion. The combined company will be known as XTI Aerospace and trade under the symbol XTIA, with Inpixon shareholders owning 40 percent of the new entity.
The proposed merger is expected to close in Q4 of this year but already has attracted the attention of at least one law firm, Halper Sadeh, that is investigating whether the deal is fair to Inpixon shareholders.
The TriFan program has made slow progress since 2017, relying on a variety of funding sources including crowdfunding. An uncrewed, two-third scale prototype made a variety of tethered flight tests in 2019, and the company has announced a major propulsion redesign and the selection of a number of prospective suppliers and manufacturing partners, including GE for the Catalyst engine (replacing the originally envisioned Honeywell HTS900).
Plans to power the aircraft with a turbine-hybrid distributed electric propulsion system with battery backup were put on hold in favor of an aircraft that can run on sustainable aviation fuel. The aircraft is expected to have seating for four or five passengers and a single pilot, IFR capabilities, a range of 600-750 nm, a top speed in excess of 300 knots, and a service ceiling of 29,000 feet. Last year the company said it was aiming to begin deliveries in 2027.