Boeing Archer Aviation Deal Hands Flying-Taxi Pioneer Wisk, Two More Units in Nearly 20% Stake Swap

No cash purchase price was disclosed. Boeing is trading Wisk Aero, drone maker Insitu and airspace firm SkyGrid to Archer for a nearly 20% stake, two warrants and a board seat — while keeping the autonomy technology it spent two decades funding.

Boeing is handing its autonomous flying-taxi venture Wisk Aero and two other units to Archer Aviation for a nearly 20% equity stake, warrants and a board seat, the companies said Monday.

The all-stock transaction carries no headline cash purchase price. Instead, Archer will issue Boeing newly created Class A shares equal to 19.75% of the shares outstanding immediately before closing, subject to customary adjustments. Because the shares are measured against the pre-closing count, Boeing’s stake after the deal is expected to be roughly 16.5%. The companies expect to close by the end of 2026, pending regulatory approvals.

Along with Wisk, Archer is acquiring Insitu, Boeing’s military drone business, and SkyGrid, a digital airspace management unit. The companies signed the equity purchase agreement Aug. 9 and announced it a day later from Boeing’s headquarters in Arlington and Archer’s in San Jose, California.

For Archer, the arithmetic is the point. The company reported $5 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2026, up from $1.6 million in the first, against an adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $177.1 million and a net loss of $263.2 million. It has guided to another $170 million to $200 million adjusted EBITDA loss in the third quarter. Insitu, by contrast, is profitable and generates more than $200 million in annual revenue, according to the joint announcement, which notes the figure is based on Insitu’s current financials and estimates.

“This is a watershed moment for Archer and the future of physical AI in aerospace and defense. This is the next big step forward in becoming a diversified platform, rapidly growing our revenue base and bringing scale to our business,” said Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and chief executive.

Investors responded. Archer shares jumped about 20% in early trading Monday before paring gains, closing up 12% at $6.26.

What Boeing Keeps

Boeing is not walking away from the technology it funded. Under the agreement, the two companies will grant each other reciprocal worldwide licenses at closing, and Boeing specifically retains access to Wisk’s core autonomous flight technology for its current and next-generation commercial and defense aircraft.

The equity package also comes with optionality. Boeing receives two warrants, each covering shares initially valued at $100 million, with exercise prices of $13.00 and $17.88. The first is exercisable between 12 and 36 months after closing, the second between 12 and 48 months. A 12-month lock-up applies to the consideration shares, and warrant exercise is capped at 19.9% beneficial ownership, a limit Boeing may waive. Both the warrants and the stock purchase require Archer shareholder approval; if it is not obtained within 12 months of closing, the warrants convert to cash-settled instruments.

So long as Boeing holds at least 10% of Archer’s pre-closing Class A equity, it may nominate one director, who would be appointed to the board class with the longest remaining term shortly after the deal closes.

Boeing has separately committed to buy up to $55 million of additional Archer stock in connection with a future Archer equity offering of at least $400 million in gross proceeds, at the lowest price paid by outside investors. Archer may exercise that option once, before the later of March 31, 2027, or three months after closing.

“This transaction is a win-win for Boeing and Archer. It allows Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu to accelerate capability development and time to market while ensuring Boeing capitalizes on its investments in these technologies over the past two decades through continued development in our core businesses,” said Brian Yutko, vice president of commercial airplanes product development at Boeing.

“Having worked with the incredible teams in these companies firsthand, it’s clear this transaction will create an industry leader in the advanced aviation market,” Yutko said. “We look forward to collaborating with Archer to drive continued innovation in aerospace, defense and autonomy.”

A Portfolio Trimmed, Not Cashed Out

The deal extends Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg’s effort to shrink Boeing’s sprawl. Discussing a portfolio review after Boeing’s third-quarter results in October 2024, Ortberg told CNBC, “I would rather err on the side of doing less and better than doing more and not doing it well.”

The most recent precedent was far larger and far more liquid: Boeing sold Jeppesen, ForeFlight, AerData and OzRunways to Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion, a deal that closed Nov. 3, 2025. This one delivers no comparable cash infusion — Boeing takes paper in a company still years from proving its business model.

What Archer takes on is considerable. It must integrate three businesses while continuing to fund Wisk’s autonomy program, push its piloted Midnight aircraft toward Federal Aviation Administration type certification it has not yet obtained, and invest simultaneously in defense, artificial intelligence and manufacturing. The transaction documents contemplate a capital raise of at least $400 million.

The companies describe the combined result as an “end-to-end physical AI platform,” stitching together Midnight, Wisk’s autonomy work, Insitu’s military unmanned aircraft systems, SkyGrid’s airspace management and ZEE, Archer’s purpose-built aviation foundation model announced in July 2026 and trained on data including ADS-B, air traffic control feeds, maps and weather. The three Boeing units bring nearly two million combined flight hours.

Archer had already been moving toward defense. It is working with Anduril on a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for the U.S. military, and unveiled its Halo and Thunder programs in July. Insitu supplies something Archer does not yet have on its own: more than 3,500 unmanned systems built and fielded, customers in the armed forces of 35 nations, and offices in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Boeing agreed to buy the company in July 2008 — when Insitu was forecasting about $150 million in revenue that year — and closed the deal that September; Bloomberg reported in February 2025 that Boeing was weighing a sale as part of a portfolio review, with Jefferies analysts then valuing the unit near $500 million.

Wisk brings a different record — 16 years of development, six generations of eVTOL aircraft designed, built and flown, more than 1,700 flight tests, and a next-generation flight control computer, sensor suite and radar built with certification in mind for civil and potential defense use. Boeing invested $450 million in Wisk in January 2022 and became its sole owner in 2023. Autonomous passenger flight remains commercially unproven, and the sector still faces certification, manufacturing scale and economic hurdles.

SkyGrid, the smallest piece, operates a ground-based, aircraft-agnostic air traffic management platform intended to support safe integration and coordinated traffic management at scale.

Full Circle

There is history here. Wisk sued Archer in 2021, alleging theft of trade secrets. The two settled on Aug. 10, 2023 — three years to the day before Monday’s announcement — in a deal that brought a Boeing investment in Archer and named Wisk the exclusive autonomy provider for future Archer variants.

Archer will acquire 100% of the equity interests in Wisk Aero LLC, SkyGrid LLC, Insitu Inc. and related entities including Insitu Pacific Pty Ltd, Wisk Australia Pty Ltd and Boeing Emirates Ltd. Closing conditions include expiration or termination of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period, certain national security and foreign direct investment approvals, New York Stock Exchange listing approval for the consideration shares, and the absence of a material adverse effect. The outside date is May 9, 2027, extendable by three months if only the regulatory condition remains outstanding.

Moelis & Company advised Archer, with Fenwick & West as legal counsel. J.P. Morgan Securities advised Boeing, with Mayer Brown as counsel. The joint release carried standard forward-looking-statement disclaimers covering regulatory approval, integration and realization of expected benefits.

No facility transfers or employee headcounts were disclosed in the primary materials. Neither the FAA nor the Defense Department has issued a public statement on the transaction. Archer reported its second-quarter results the same day it announced the deal, and referenced the transaction in its shareholder letter.