Seattle-based startup Radical, co-founded by CEO James Thomas and CTO Cyriel Notteboom, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to support the development of solar-powered, autonomous airplanes. The goal of Radical is to create planes that can fly continuously in the stratosphere without landing and carry payloads for applications such as imaging, remote sensing, and telecommunications. The funding round was led by Scout Ventures, with additional support from other investors including Inflection Mercury Fund and Y Combinator. Radical’s founders left Amazon’s Prime Air in mid-2022 to start the aerospace company, which is now emerging from stealth mode.
The newly announced investment will be used to expand Radical’s team, which currently consists of four people. Thomas stated that the team is growing rapidly and is currently hiring for additional positions. Radical’s mission is to develop autonomous, solar-powered aircraft that can fly continuously in the stratosphere. The aircraft, which could potentially fly for as long as a year, would serve as persistent airborne infrastructure for a variety of applications. In a test flight last year, Thomas and Notteboom flew a prototype for more than 24 hours nonstop, demonstrating the capabilities of the technology.
Radical is currently focused on building and testing a full-scale aircraft with a projected wingspan of 110 feet and the ability to fly as high as 70,000 feet. The development work is taking place at Radical’s home base in Seattle, with the team building wing sections and iterating on the design. The long-duration flights in the stratosphere could be used for a range of commercial and government applications, including monitoring weather systems, wildfires, and illegal activities, as well as providing high-resolution imaging and mapping.
One of the key benefits of Radical’s solar-powered flights is their zero carbon emissions, making them an environmentally friendly option for long-duration flights. The team at Radical has experience working on autonomous flight from their time at Amazon and SpaceX, bringing a wealth of expertise to the development of the aircraft. The vision for Radical’s aircraft has similarities to Facebook’s Aquila project, which aimed to use high-altitude, solar-powered drones as relay stations for internet access to remote areas. Radical’s team is focused on applying their experience to address customer needs and continue to develop innovative solutions for long-duration flight in the stratosphere.
