Ampaire Raises $19M for Hybrid-Electric Aviation

Ampaire has closed a $19M Series B led by DiamondStream Partners, with strategic participation from Alaska Star Ventures and IAGi Ventures. Announced on August 18, 2026, the round gives the Long Beach, California company fresh capital to move its hybrid-electric aircraft technology from flight-tested systems toward commercial products and scaled operations.

The financing brings Ampaire's company-reported total funding to $68M, including approximately $25M in non-dilutive grants and contracts. That distinction is important because the headline total combines private financing with government-backed technical work from organizations including the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E program, and NASA.

The round matters because Ampaire is not asking regional aviation to replace every aircraft, airport process, and energy system at once. Its strategy is to retrofit familiar aircraft with hybrid-electric propulsion, reducing fuel use while preserving the range, payload utility, and infrastructure compatibility operators need.

What Happened

DiamondStream Partners led the Series B, while Alaska Star Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Alaska Air Group, and IAGi Ventures, the corporate venture arm of International Airlines Group, joined as strategic participants. IAG's announcement says it will work with Ampaire to explore hybrid-electric auxiliary power unit applications that could reduce aircraft fuel consumption while planes are on the ground.

Ampaire's release also names Pay it Forward Ventures, Massive Ventures, Techstars Ventures, Autodesk Foundation Impact Fund, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator Impact Fund, Elemental Impact, Venn10 Capital, Gaingels, Exit Fund, Sand Hill Angels, and Climate Capital. The company did not disclose its valuation, the round's security, investor ownership, or individual check sizes, so those details should not be reverse-engineered from a press release.

Why This Matters

Ampaire's first commercialization target is the Eco Caravan, a hybrid-electric conversion of the Cessna Grand Caravan powered by the company's 570 kW AMP-H570 integrated parallel hybrid-electric system. The architecture combines a combustion engine and electric motor, and it can recharge batteries in flight, which reduces dependence on new ground-charging infrastructure.

That retrofit approach is less cinematic than unveiling a clean-sheet aircraft, but it attacks the adoption problem directly. Regional airlines and cargo operators care about fuel, maintenance, payload, range, certification, dispatch reliability, and support. A propulsion system that fits an existing aircraft and works with today's airports has a clearer route into operating conversations, provided Ampaire can finish certification and prove the economics beyond flight testing.

From Flight Tests to Commercial Operations

Ampaire says its fleet has completed more than 38,000 hybrid-electric test miles. The company also reports that its Eco Caravan flight-test aircraft has demonstrated approximately 54% to 57% lower total fuel burn than the legacy turboprop configuration, including the fuel used to recharge its batteries. Those figures are meaningful, but they remain company-reported test results rather than audited fleet-wide operating outcomes.

The capital is intended to broaden route operations under the FAA's eIPP program, produce additional Eco Caravan aircraft, expand engineering and operational teams, improve supplier readiness, establish early manufacturing capability, and prepare aftermarket support. In plain English, Ampaire now has to make the parts around the technology move at the same speed as the aircraft.

Certification Is the Real Gate

The FAA approved the G-1 certification basis for the AMP-H570 in May 2025, establishing the airworthiness and environmental standards the system must satisfy. Ampaire is pursuing Part 33 certification for the power system and a Part 23 Supplemental Type Certificate for the Eco Caravan, but neither program is complete.

That distinction separates progress from permission. Ampaire can point to years of flight testing, a defined certification basis, and airline-affiliated investors, yet commercial entry into service still depends on testing evidence, regulatory review, manufacturing discipline, and maintainable support. Aviation does not award points for skipping the hard middle.

The People Behind the Program

Kevin Noertker and Cory Combs founded Ampaire in 2016 after working on aerospace research and development programs. Kevin Noertker is co-founder and CEO, Cory Combs is co-founder and Executive Tech Fellow, and Ed Lovelace is CTO. The leadership team has spent years building a stepwise path from the Electric EEL testbed to the Eco Caravan and the AMP-H570.

The Series B does not end that path. It finances the transition from proving that hybrid-electric aircraft can fly to proving that the technology can be certified, manufactured, supported, and operated at a cost that earns airline trust.

What the Investor Mix Signals

DiamondStream Partners brings an aviation-focused financial lead, while Alaska Star Ventures and IAGi Ventures connect Ampaire to airline operating requirements. Strategic investors do not guarantee adoption, but they can expose engineering teams to route economics, maintenance constraints, procurement expectations, and the unglamorous details that decide whether a technology survives outside a test program.

For the market, that is the useful signal. Cleaner regional aviation may arrive first through incremental but material upgrades to the installed fleet, rather than a sudden replacement of every airframe and airport system. Ampaire's $19M Series B is a wager that practical decarbonization can scale by respecting the infrastructure already in place.

What Comes Next

Ampaire's next phase will be measured by certification progress, additional Eco Caravan production, flight operations, supplier maturity, manufacturing repeatability, and aftermarket readiness. The round supplies resources and strategic relationships, but those operating milestones will determine whether the company's hybrid-electric approach becomes a commercial aviation product.

If Ampaire converts its flight-test record into certified systems and dependable operator economics, the company will have done more than reduce fuel burn on one aircraft type. It will have demonstrated a deployment model for lowering aviation emissions without waiting for the entire industry to rebuild itself from scratch.