Archer Buys Boeing's Wisk, Insitu, SkyGrid for 20% Stake

Archer Aviation agreed to acquire three Boeing subsidiaries — eVTOL developer Wisk Aero, uncrewed aircraft maker Insitu, and airspace-software firm SkyGrid — in an all-stock deal announced August 10, 2026. Boeing becomes Archer's largest outside shareholder with a stake of nearly 20%, while retaining rights to Wisk's autonomous flight technology for its own aircraft programs.

The deal reshapes Archer from an eVTOL air-taxi startup into a diversified aerospace and defense supplier overnight, combining nearly two million flight hours across three companies under one roof.

Background

Boeing entered the electric air taxi race in 2019, backing Wisk Aero as a 50-50 joint venture with Kitty Hawk before taking full ownership in 2023. It also owns Insitu, the Bingen, Washington-based maker of the ScanEagle military drone, acquired in 2008. SkyGrid, an airspace-management software venture Boeing co-founded with AI firm SparkCognition in 2018, was folded into Wisk in 2025. All three sat inside Boeing's broader push into advanced air mobility (AAM) — the emerging category of electric, often autonomous aircraft for short-range passenger and cargo flights.

That push has cost Boeing money without a near-term payoff, while the commercial aircraft maker faces pressure to focus on its core 737 and 787 programs and defense contracts. Selling the three units to Archer lets Boeing keep financial upside through equity, plus technology access through licensing, without carrying the operating costs of an unproven aircraft category. For Archer, which is still completing FAA type certification for its Midnight air taxi alongside rival Joby Aviation, the deal adds engineering talent, defense revenue, and government relationships years ahead of building them independently.

What Boeing Is Selling: Wisk, Insitu, and SkyGrid

The three businesses cover different parts of the uncrewed and autonomous aircraft market:

Wisk is the only company to have designed, built, and flown six generations of eVTOL aircraft, and it has pursued a fully autonomous — no pilot onboard — air taxi since 2019, a different approach than Archer's own piloted Midnight aircraft. Insitu brings the deal's clearest revenue and defense footprint: its ScanEagle and Integrator uncrewed aircraft have flown reconnaissance and surveillance missions for the US military and allied forces for two decades, with operations spanning the US, Australia, the UK, and the UAE. SkyGrid adds software for managing shared airspace as drone and air-taxi traffic scales — a problem regulators are also tackling through rules like the FAA's pending BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) framework.

The Deal Terms: Boeing Becomes Archer's Largest Outside Shareholder

Archer and Boeing structured the transaction as an all-stock swap rather than a cash sale. Boeing will receive newly issued Archer Class A shares plus warrants to purchase up to $200 million more in Archer stock, and separately commit up to $55 million to an upcoming Archer funding round — terms that together position Boeing as Archer's largest outside shareholder, at a stake close to 20%. Specific per-share pricing and the total transaction value were not disclosed in the companies' announcements.

In exchange for giving up operational control, Boeing secured a cross-licensing agreement giving it continued access to Wisk's autonomous flight software for its own commercial and defense aircraft — including, according to Boeing Commercial Airplanes product development VP Brian Yutko, early-stage planning for a successor to the 737. Yutko, who previously served as Wisk's CEO, said the arrangement lets Boeing "take all of the technologies and the IP... and then focus them back on our core Boeing products" rather than running competing air-taxi and drone units in parallel.

Archer, meanwhile, plans to fold the three companies' flight data and software into ZEE, the aviation AI foundation model it unveiled days earlier on August 5 — see our coverage of ZEE's airport-safety predictions for how that platform works. Insitu's engineering base also strengthens Archer's separate hybrid-electric "loyal wingman" military drone program built with Anduril Industries. "This is a watershed moment for Archer and the future of physical AI in aerospace and defense," Archer founder and CEO Adam Goldstein said in the announcement. The deal still needs to clear Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust review and other regulatory approvals, with both companies targeting a close by the end of 2026.

What This Means for Drone Pilots

Nothing changes immediately for hobbyist or Part 107 commercial pilots — this is a corporate ownership transaction, not a new rule or product launch. But it signals where the drone and air-taxi industries are converging. Archer, previously known narrowly for eVTOL air taxis, now owns a fielded military drone line, airspace-management software, and a fast-growing AI platform — the kind of vertical integration more manufacturers are likely to pursue as autonomous flight, uncrewed aircraft, and passenger aviation increasingly share technology and regulatory pathways. For background on how AI is already reshaping flight planning, obstacle avoidance, and autonomy across the drone industry, see our guide to drones and artificial intelligence.

The deal also underscores how much of the drone industry's most advanced technology, from Insitu's decades-old ScanEagle program to Wisk's autonomous eVTOL, now sits inside a handful of large, cross-invested companies — a consolidation trend worth watching for anyone tracking where commercial drone and AAM technology is headed next.

Sources: Archer Aviation Investor Relations | The Air Current