JoeBen Speaks about the $6.6B SPAC
JoeBen Bevrit
UPDATE February 26, 2021 - Joby Aviation has named Matthew Field, previously CFO of Ford Motor Co. North America, its new CFO.
February 24, 2021 marks a significant day in Santa Cruz history: Joby Aviation secured a $6.6B SPAC. Some of you may recall when CEO and founder JoeBen Bevirt revealed his plans at our Titans of Tech event on January 25, 2018. All of us with the entrepreneurial wings soared with inspiration faster than a peregrine falcon. He is living up to our community-given moniker the “Elon Musk of Santa Cruz”.
Joby Aviation has been in the works for the past 10 years. It was a dream of JoeBen’s for decades before. This week, that dream flew closer to reality with the announcement of a merger with Reinvent-Technology Partners. Using the “fund de jour” - SPAC - Joby Aviation was able to bring onboard tech legends Reid Hoffman the co-founder of LinkedIn and Mark Pincus the founder of Zynga.
We asked JoeBen what this means for Joby, for transportation, for Santa Cruz, and the world.
“For the last ten years, we’ve been quietly working away at our base in Bonny Doon, developing the technology for what we believe will be an incredibly impactful new form of transport.
“As someone who was born and raised here, it makes me so proud to be able to share our progress with the world today and to showcase what we have achieved with the support of this incredible community.
“Over the last decade we’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to grow Joby substantially, creating hundreds of new high quality jobs. With the funding that we announced today we look forward to continuing to boost the prosperity of the Monterey Bay Area.” JoeBen Bevrit
We asked the same questions of Bonnie Lipscomb, Economic Development Director for the City of Santa Cruz.
“This is incredible news for our community and no surprise that Joby Aviation is first in the transportation technology field to reach this milestone. Santa Cruz has always been known as the hub for creative innovation with a commitment to green technology. Joby Aviation’s commitment and vision has led the way in the transportation technology field and takes multi-modal to a whole new level. No better place than Santa Cruz to undertake this effort and no better place than Santa Cruz to provide the skilled labor needed to help make this vision a reality by 2024. We couldn’t be more excited by the announcement and look forward to assisting with any labor or expansion needs” Bonnie Lipscomb
And we asked Joshua Resnick, CEO and founder of the next unicorn: Parallel Flight Technologies.
"It is thrilling to see Joby's incredible technical achievement which is the result of both tenacity and vision. They are leading the way for Urban Air Mobility and the future of aviation. Congratulations to the entire team!" Joshua Resnick
Stay tuned. More news coming soon!