Archer Aviation (ACHR -5.75%) is one of a handful of companies pioneering one of the most disruptive innovations in transportation in generations.
Archer is a development-stage manufacturer of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. These vehicles are similar to electric helicopters, but offer some advantages. They're much quieter than helicopters. They have multiple engines rather than a single engine, aiming to eliminate the single-point-of-failure problem in helicopters, and as EVs, they avoid the emissions of helicopters.
Investors are clearly excited about Archer Aviation, as the stock has jumped 155% over the last year. It soared after the election, and it's continued to rise since then, even though the company has no revenue. Its market cap is now at $6.2 billion.
Does this stock have what it takes to deliver life-changing returns? Let's take a closer look.
Image source: Archer Aviation.
Where Archer Aviation stands today
Archer Aviation's premier vehicle is the Midnight, which comes with a price tag of $5 million and has secured customers like United Airlines, Abu Dhabi Aviation, and Ethiopian Airlines.
The company describes Midnight as a proprietary distributed electric propulsion platform. It can carry four passengers and a pilot.
Archer is developing two divisions: commercial and business.
Its commercial division, which it calls Archer Direct, is built around an urban air taxi network. Archer envisions customers like United Airlines using its vehicles to ferry passengers from downtown heliports to local airports, saving the time it would typically take to commute by car. Archer also plans to provide its own direct-to-consumer aerial ride-share service, which would transport passengers around metro areas.
Like drones, its vehicles are also seen as having applications in the military and defense industries. The company has partnered on projects with the Air Force since 2021, and it's also teamed up with Anduril, a defense start-up, to develop a hybrid-propulsion, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
Commercialization appears to be coming soon as the company said in its first-quarter report that it was on track to deliver its first aircraft to the UAE soon. It also announced an AI partnership with Palantir, the high-flying defense tech company, to work on AI for new aviation technologies. Finally, it unveiled its plans for an air taxi network in New York City with United.
Archer's financials
With no revenue, we can't judge Archer based on conventional valuation metrics. However, we can examine its balance sheet and its cash burn.
Archer finished the quarter with $1.03 billion in cash and only $203.3 million in total liabilities, showing the company is well-capitalized, and with a market cap of $6 billion right now, it should be able to raise more cash by selling equity without significantly diluting shareholders. The company raised an additional $850 million in June, giving it nearly $2 billion in liquidity.
As for cash burn, it had a negative free cash flow of $104.6 million in the first quarter and a free cash flow loss of $450 million in 2024, showing that it would burn through the nearly $2 billion it has on the balance sheet in about four years.
Can Archer Aviation help you retire early?
At this point, high expectations are already baked into Archer Aviation's valuation, and the eVTOL industry more broadly, before Archer has even made a sale.
It's possible that the new technology could be disruptive, but before investors bid the stock up further, they should question why helicopters haven't gained further adoption for things like the urban air taxi network that Archer hopes to create.
Services like Blade already exist that provide just that, and they have not gone mainstream, likely because it is not cost-effective for most passengers to travel by helicopter. For example, Blade charges a base price of $195 per seat for a ride from Manhattan to JFK airport.
Defense applications seem more promising for Archer, but the addressable market for its technology is still unclear and unproven.
With any new technology, there is some possibility that it could be a breakthrough and a big winner for investors, but it's also worth remembering that the market is already frothy, and general bullish sentiment has already driven up stocks in emerging sectors like eVTOL and quantum computing.
Archer Aviation does have the potential to be a big winner, but with a market cap of $6 billion, and the economics and air taxis appearing to be unfavorable, the chances of it being a disappointment are much greater than it setting you up for life.
