Joby To Buy Dayton Defense Firm in $500 Million Deal

Joby Aviation is buying Ohio-based defense contractor Resonant Sciences for roughly $500 million and consolidating its own military programs into the acquired business unit, the eVTOL manufacturer announced on Tuesday. The arrangement turns a decade of Joby’s defense side projects into a standalone business with its own leadership, facilities, and classified customer base.

Resonant Sciences employs about 250 people and builds radio frequency sensors, antennas, radomes, and mission systems for U.S. national security customers. It will keep its name after the deal closes, and co-founder and CEO J. Micah North will stay on to lead the unit. Joby’s commercial team, meanwhile, keeps its focus on certifying and building the piloted, four-passenger JAS4-1 eVTOL air taxi.

The Dayton-based company also designs low-observability structures and subsystems. Its electronics and apertures are qualified across more than 20 airframes, and upward of 90% of its employees hold security clearances.

Joby has worked with the U.S. Air Force since 2016, when the service’s Afwerx innovation arm began looking at electric propulsion. That relationship produced an Agility Prime contract worth up to $131 million, eVTOL deliveries to Edwards Air Force Base in California and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, and a four-week maintenance course Joby ran for Air Force technicians at its Marina, California facility in late 2024.

Two acquisitions broadened the portfolio. Joby bought the autonomy division of Xwing in 2024, picking up the Superpilot flight control system and optionally piloted Cessna Caravan that Joby has since used to demonstrate autonomous defense operations. Meanwhile, Joby’s German subsidiary H2Fly supplied the fuel cell powertrain for a hydrogen-electric version of Joby’s aircraft that reached 561 miles in 2024.

Joby and L3Harris Technologies said in August 2025 that they would jointly develop an optionally piloted, gas turbine hybrid VTOL aircraft for missions below 10,000 feet, with operational demonstrations planned during government exercises this year. All of that work—hybrid, hydrogen, and autonomy alike—now reports into Resonant.

In 2023, Joby announced plans to build its first scaled air taxi factory at Dayton International Airport (KDAY), where it aims to manufacture up to 500 aircraft per year, and has since secured 768,000 sq ft in the region. Resonant occupies roughly 105,000 sq ft across seven buildings in the area and has an additional 125,000-sq-ft building under construction. Together the two will hold close to 1 million sq ft of manufacturing, integration, and test space a few miles from the bicycle shop where the Wright brothers worked, Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt pointed out in a blog post published alongside the announcement.

Private Equity Owner Cashes In

Joby will pay approximately $450 million in cash and $50 million in stock priced at $7.4752 per share. The two sides signed on August 8, and Joby expects to close during the first half of 2027. While Joby did not name the seller, New York-based Cerberus Capital Management confirmed in a separate statement that it has owned Resonant since 2023. Investing through its Supply Chain platform, Cerberus expanded the company’s manufacturing capacity and moved its technologies from research and development into production. “We believe Joby is exceptionally well-positioned to support Resonant’s next phase of growth,” said Cerberus senior managing director and co-head of supply chain Michael Palmer.

The purchase agreement lists three national security approvals as conditions to closing: the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), which oversees clearances for contractors like Resonant, and UK regulators under that country’s National Security and Investment Act. DCSA could require Joby to wall off Resonant’s classified work from foreign ownership—notable given that Toyota, Joby’s largest strategic shareholder, is also its manufacturing partner in Dayton and Marina.

Joby also disclosed in a Form 8-K filed the same day that it had arranged to sell up to $750 million in additional stock over time. The company said the proceeds, together with cash on hand, would help fund certification and manufacturing work as well as potential acquisitions—relevant given that the company is racing to finish FAA type certification while absorbing a $500 million purchase. Joby held $2.3 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of the second quarter, against a quarterly net loss of $245.4 million.

One day prior, rival Archer Aviation announced that it is acquiring Boeing’s Wisk Aero, Insitu, and SkyGrid units. That company has been working with Anduril Industries on a hybrid VTOL design since 2024. Neither Archer nor Joby has yet certified the passenger-carrying eVTOL air taxi it was founded to build.