Archer has reached an agreement in principle on key terms of its planned contract manufacturing relationship with Stellantis. In addition to the nearly $300m Stellantis has previously invested to date, including $55m in July 2024, Stellantis is planning to fund the following to help ensure Archer achieves its manufacturing goals.

Stellantis will fund up to $370m of the anticipated manufacturing labour costs necessary to support Archer’s planned manufacturing ramp to 650 aircraft annually. In exchange, Stellantis would receive Archer shares on a rolling quarterly basis based on the total labour costs incurred in a particular quarter and Archer’s then-current future stock price.

Additionally, Stellantis will contribute the identified initial incremental manufacturing capital expenditures for the initial ramp of Midnight production, estimated to be up to $20m.

Archer’s goal with this relationship is to incentivize Stellantis to help it achieve its planned production ramp and unit cost targets. Therefore, Archer intends to issue Stellantis $30m of performance warrants that will vest based on Stellantis' achievement of certain performance milestones under the contract manufacturing relationship. Archer’s issuance of any equity to Stellantis pursuant to this contract manufacturing relationship is expected to be subject to approval by Archer’s stockholders.

This month, the U.S. Department of Defense accepted the military airworthiness assessment of Archer’s Midnight aircraft, and Archer subsequently delivered Midnight to the U.S. Air Force as part of Archer’s AFWERX Agility Prime contract valued at up to $142M. Following the recent delivery-in-place handoff at Archer’s flight test facility in Salinas, CA, a team of USAF personnel worked alongside Archer’s flight test team to execute simulated medical evacuation, cargo, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights with the aircraft.

Archer announced Future Flight Global, a leader in business aviation and private jet travel, plans to purchase up to 116 Midnight aircraft worth up to $580m. Future Flight Global has already placed an initial cash deposit and plans to make additional pre-delivery payments to Archer when the parties finalize the definitive aircraft purchase agreement. In aggregate, with this latest announcement, Archer now has nearly $6b in indicative orders with associated pre-delivery payments.