Archer Aviation ACHR, which builds electric air taxis, rose 18.43% premarket after announcing it will acquire Boeing's Wisk Aero, Insitu, and SkyGrid subsidiaries. The deal adds a profitable defense business with more than $200 million in annual revenue and operations across 35 countries, and Boeing BA will take a stake in Archer as a strategic partner.
The three units bring hardware and autonomy software. Insitu, a drone maker focused on intelligence and surveillance, has built more than 3,500 uncrewed aircraft systems, while Wisk has flown six generations of self-piloting eVTOL aircraft over 16 years with over 1,700 flight tests. SkyGrid adds ground-based air-traffic-management software. Archer plans to fold their autonomy software, together with nearly two million combined flight hours of data, into its own aerospace AI model, ZEE, framing the result as an "end-to-end physical AI platform."
As part of the deal, Boeing will keep access to Wisk's autonomous flight technology for its own commercial and defense aircraft, and hold strategic upside through its Archer stake.
Boeing will receive Archer shares equal to about 19.75% of its Class A stock, plus warrants covering roughly $100 million of shares each, exercisable at $13.00 and $17.88, and will take a seat on Archer's board. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026, pending antitrust and national-security clearance. Archer is set to report second-quarter earnings after the close today.
