Backers included GV (formerly Google Ventures) and First Round Capital.
Founded in 2018 and led by Matthew George, CEO, Merlin Labs Merlin is building a certifiable autonomy system for complex fixed-wing aircraft. The company has demonstrated hundreds of autonomous missions on multiple aircraft types, including complex twin turboprop aircraft. Its autonomy platform is aircraft-agnostic, focuses on on-board autonomy rather than remote piloting and is being integrated into a wide variety of public- and private-sector aircraft.
The company, which until today had been in stealth mode, is also announcing a 55-aircraft partnership with Dynamic Aviation, the owner of the world’s largest private King Air fleet. It has offices in Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, and Auckland, New Zealand as well as a dedicated flight facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port.
Merlin Labs, an autonomous flight startup based in Boston, is coming out of stealth. The company announced a $25 million funding round and a deal to equip 55 King Air planes with its technology for Dynamic Aviation.
/PRNewswire/ Merlin Labs, the leading developer of autonomous flight technology for fixed-wing aircraft, is disclosing that it has raised $25 million in.
This AI startup is putting a fleet of airplanes in the sky without human pilots Fully-autonomous flight, take-off to touchdown
Meet the pilot of tomorrow, today:
Credit: Merlin Labs
Look ma, no pilot
AI startup Merlin Labs today deactivated stealth mode to announce a $25 million funding round and a partnership with Dynamic Aviation to put a fleet of 55 King Air planes in the sky without humans aboard.
Merlin Labs CEO and founder Matthew George told Neural:
What weâre building is software that creates a think-for-itself-pilot ⦠fully-autonomous flight take-off to touchdown.
The big idea: See a need, fill a need. Merlin Labs is taking autonomous software technology and building an artificially intelligent pilot. Autonomous fixed-wing flight might sound familiar, but thereâs a huge difference between designing a remote or hybrid-controlled drone from the ground up and building a system that can fly nearly any fixed wing aircraft.
When Merlin Labs founder Matt George was learning to fly in Vermont, he had a close call with a Jet Blue aircraft that was coming into Burlington airport. It was “an unsettling experience,” he told TechCrunch, but one that stuck with him. A few years later, after the transportation company he founded Bridgj was acquired […]