Vertical Aerospace, the U.K.-based vertical take-off aircraft startup, will likely make a billionaire of its founder, following the announcement of its intention to go public via a $2.2 billion SPAC merger by DavidGDawkins
, whose Virgin Atlantic airline announced a partnership on Thursday that gives it the option to purchase up to 150 eVTOL aircraft from Vertical.
In the U.S., American Airlines has agreed to pre-order up to 250 aircraft, while Avolon has agreed to pre-order up to 310 aircraft. “This is the most exciting time in aviation for almost a century,” Fitzpatrick said in a press release. “Electrification will transform flying in the 21st century in the same way the jet engine did 70 years ago.”Born in Belfast, Stephen Fitzpatrick arrived on the British business landscape in 2009 with Ovo energy.
Alongside Ovo and Vertical, Fitzpatrick founded “intelligent energy platform” Kaluza in 2018 to help energy suppliers around the world reduce their costs. Claiming to do everything from billing to smart electric vehicle charging, Kaluza describes itself as a real-time cloud platform to help suppliers operate their grid.
When the Spac merger is complete later in 2021 Fitzpatrick will likely become the U.K.’s first ‘green’ energy billionaire. “When I think of the energy market of the future, really I think of a mesh of distributed energy assets, with each home at the centre of its own energy market,” Fitzpatrick told
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