There is a moment in every industry when the future stops asking for permission and just taxis onto the runway. Aerospace is in one of those moments right now, and Natilus just poured jet fuel on it with a $28M Series A that feels less like a funding round and more like a declaration of intent.
This raise is led by Draper Associates, with Type One Ventures, The Veterans Fund, Flexport, New Vista Capital, Soma Capital, Liquid 2 VC, VU Venture Partners, and Wave FX all leaning in. That is not a tourist list. That is capital that understands logistics pain, defense realities, and what happens when physics finally gets invited into the business model.
Natilus exists because Aleksey Matyushev, CEO, and Anatoly Starikov, COO, lived the problem first. Their industrial design work ran headfirst into the same brick wall everyone else pretended was just part of the job: ocean freight is cheap and slow, air freight is fast and expensive, and nobody bothered to fix the math. So they did. Blended wing body aircraft are not a vibe. They are a response.
The result is a family of aircraft that cut fuel burn by 30%, operating costs and emissions by roughly 50%, and carry more payload without asking airports to rebuild civilization. The KONA cargo platform targets regional freight, gravel runways, and defense logistics that actually exist outside PowerPoint. The HORIZON program stretches that same efficiency into passenger aviation, now evolving into a dual-deck configuration that quietly stares down narrowbody incumbents without raising its voice.
The market has already voted. More than 570 aircraft in the order book. Roughly $24B in commercial commitments. Ameriflight signed for KONA. Nolinor Aviation locked in production slots. SpiceJet ordered 100 HORIZON aircraft and opened the door to India, the 5th-largest aviation market on the planet, with manufacturing ambitions that finally match demand. Even Flexport shows up as both customer and investor, which tells you this is about throughput, not theory.
The capital will drive first full-scale flight of KONA, advance FAA Part 23 certification, and stand up a U.S. manufacturing facility built for volume, not vanity. Kory Mathews joining the board brings Boeing Phantom Works scar tissue and credibility where it counts, inside programs that ship metal.
This is what happens when aerospace stops romanticizing the past and starts respecting efficiency, logistics, and time. Natilus is not chasing the future. It is building aircraft for the world we already live in, and daring the rest of the industry to catch up.
