Samson Sky Gets $80M for Switchblade Production

Samson Sky has spent more than a decade proving that a roadable aircraft can leave a runway. An $80M investment from Dubai-based Matin Group now moves the question toward a 180,000-square-foot production floor.

The companies have signed a Joint Investment Agreement and say they are initiating a joint venture to move the Switchblade flying car into commercial production. Samson Sky plans to use the investment to establish its first U.S. production facility and support vehicle manufacturing, while acknowledging that another $20M is still needed to complete production funding.

That detail matters. The announcement finances a major transition, but it does not close every gap between a prototype, a factory, a regulated owner-build process, and repeatable customer delivery.

What Happened

Samson Sky announced the $80M investment on September 14, 2026, according to the detailed aviation announcement and subsequent industry reporting. The planned U.S. facility will span approximately 180,000 square feet, although Samson Sky has not disclosed its location, construction schedule, expected employment, or production capacity.

The transaction is strategic rather than a conventional venture round. Samson Sky and Matin Group are pairing the investment with a joint venture, but neither party has disclosed the security, ownership stake, valuation, board rights, funding schedule, or detailed closing terms. Public reporting also does not establish whether all $80M has already been funded in cash.

Matin Group is an active Dubai-based private company with London origins. The announcement identifies Mustafa Matin as CEO and credits Anna V. Grebenshchikova, a Samson Sky ambassador and former aerobatic pilot, with bringing the organizations together. The structure suggests that Samson Sky is seeking more than a financial check as it enters a capital-heavy manufacturing phase, although the joint venture's operating responsibilities remain undisclosed.

From First Flight to Factory Work

Founder and CEO Sam Bousfield has been developing the Switchblade as a two-seat, three-wheel vehicle that can travel on public roads and fly from conventional airports. Its wings and tail fold into the body for road use, and Samson Sky says the transformation into flight mode takes about 3 minutes. The production design uses the company's Skybrid hybrid-electric system, in which an automotive engine drives a generator that powers electric motors for the wheels and propellers.

The Switchblade is a roadable aircraft, not a vertical-takeoff air taxi. It must be driven to an airport and use a runway. That makes its commercial proposition different from the eVTOL programs built around short urban hops, vertiports, and fleet-operated passenger service.

The first-flight prototype flew in November 2023 at Grant County International Airport in Washington. The flight lasted just under 6 minutes and reached about 500 feet, a milestone independently covered by AOPA. Samson Sky then continued production engineering, including changes to the body, propulsion, cooling, and folding-tail systems.

Why the Customer Is Part of the Production Model

Samson Sky plans to sell the Switchblade in the United States under the Experimental Amateur-Built framework. FAA guidance requires an owner-builder to complete the major portion, meaning more than 50%, of the aircraft's fabrication and assembly tasks for education or recreation. The FAA evaluates whether a kit can meet that requirement, but it does not certify or approve aircraft kits or kit manufacturers.

Samson Sky intends to satisfy that model through a Builder Assist Center. Buyers would use automated and semi-automated equipment to complete their portion of each vehicle before Samson Sky technicians finish the remaining assembly, quality checks, and testing. The company says the customer portion may take as little as 1 week.

That makes the proposed facility more than a conventional assembly plant. Samson Sky must create a repeatable process that can teach customers, document individual build work, control quality across mixed participation, support road and aircraft registration, train pilots, and maintain the vehicle after delivery. A factory can produce parts at scale; this business also has to produce compliant builders.

The Demand Signal Needs Careful Accounting

Samson Sky says interest in the Switchblade spans every U.S. state and more than 50 countries, with recent company materials citing nearly 2,700 reservations. Those figures show broad curiosity around personal roadable aircraft, but they should not be read as delivered sales or audited backlog.

The company allows a no-payment reservation, while a $500 non-refundable deposit can secure an earlier delivery position. Samson Sky currently estimates a $200K price for the VFR kit and $235K for the IFR kit. Converting that reservation pool into purchases will depend on final production timing, customer training, performance, insurance, registration, and the lived economics of owning a vehicle that is both aircraft and road machine.

Historical funding also requires separation. A July 2024 SEC Form D disclosed an $18M Rule 506(c) equity offering with $100K sold as of the filing date. Public sources do not show how that offering relates to the 2026 Matin transaction, so the amounts should not be combined into a cumulative funding total.

What the $80M Changes

The investment moves Samson Sky's most important work from proving possibility toward proving repetition. Aircraft programs can produce compelling prototypes and still struggle with tooling, suppliers, certification boundaries, documentation, quality control, service, and the cost of every unit that follows.

Samson Sky currently says 3 production prototypes are expected around the end of 2026 or beginning of 2027, with its Builder Assist assembly line targeted for summer 2027. Those are company timelines, not completed milestones, and the additional $20M funding need remains part of the operating picture.

For Matin Group, the joint venture is a bet that a roadable-aircraft company can convert technical novelty into a supervised manufacturing system. For Samson Sky, the capital replaces one kind of uncertainty with a much more physical set of obligations: a facility, a build process, trained customers, consistent machines, and a path from reservation numbers to aircraft leaving the floor.

The Larger Advanced-Mobility Signal

The advanced-mobility market often gets grouped together under the language of flying cars, even though the operating models differ sharply. Air taxis, certified personal aircraft, experimental kits, and roadable aircraft face different infrastructure, training, manufacturing, and regulatory constraints. Samson Sky's approach uses existing roads and airports, then makes owner participation part of the aircraft's path to service.

That design choice could reduce the burden of pursuing a conventionally type-certificated consumer aircraft, but it transfers work into the Builder Assist system and the customer's experience. The $80M investment is therefore financing a business process as much as a vehicle.

The Switchblade has already shown that it can leave the ground. The harder proof will appear one owner, one documented build, and one finished aircraft at a time inside a factory that still has to be established.