Austin-based Valkyrie Sciences—which has a Dallas office located in The Crescent—has snagged a $2 million investment from Englewood, Colorado’s XTI Aerospace. The funding coincides with the two companies’ launch of the Vanguard Platform, an intelligent technology system for the next generation of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
Under the partnership, Valkyrie will apply its experience with graphene and composite materials, battery technology, and smart systems architecture to XTI’s Tri Fan 600 VTOL aircraft program. The alliance between the companies also includes a services agreement between XTI and Valkyrie Intelligence.
Valkyrie Founder and CEO Charlie Burgoyne is on XTI’s Corporate Advisory Board, a role announced in July that further cements the relationship. Burgoyne has served as the applied sciences advisor to several military and intelligence commands, XTI noted, and has worked with LANL, DOE, DARPA, NASA, CENTCOM, SOCOM, and other organizations.
Burgoyne said the Vanguard Platform, combining Valkyrie’s applied AI tech for aerospace and XTI’s VTOL engineering, “is designed to streamline aircraft development.”
“Central to this vision is Valkyrie’s work to develop the Vanguard chassis, which integrates Valkyrie’s distributed mesh intelligence—a networked, onboard computing framework intended to enable real-time coordination across aircraft systems,” the Valkyrie leader added in a statement. “Production methods and engineering processes will emphasize lean, data-driven development across both teams and opportunities for integrating intelligent systems directly into aerospace hardware.”
Applied AI as ‘one of the most significant differentiators’
XTI said Valkyrie’s experience in mesh intelligence, its development of digital-twin systems for Fortune 100 companies, and its support for racing operations provides a foundation of capabilities for leveraging the Vanguard Platform to advance capabilities of the XTI TriFan 600 aircraft.
XTI CEO Scott Pomeroy said the alliance “supports our technology-first objectives at the leading edge of emerging aerospace technologies.”
“Applied AI will be one of the most significant differentiators in this next era of aerospace and defense,” Pomeroy added in a statement. “Valkyrie’s expertise will assist us in accelerating opportunities across our portfolio, from vertical flight to unmanned systems and beyond; we believe this is a first-of-its-kind approach.”
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