Boom Supersonic, a Colorado-based airliner manufacturing company building airplanes that will fly higher than the speed of the sound has grabbed another $45M in venture funding from Prime Movers Lab where as series of the funding is not known. Moreover, the Prime Movers Lab’s General Partner, Zia Huque will also join Boom Supersonic as a new Board Member.
Just few months ago, we announced about Boom Supersonic being the new Unicorn among our portfolio startups with $50M funding from Michael Marks of Celesta Capital and crossing $1B valuation. After this latest backing of $45M, total funding amount of Boom Supersonic has reached $270M.
Huque is a veteran of Wall Street finance. He had most recently been president and CEO of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., the U.S. broker-dealer for the banking giant, until mid-2019. He joined Prime Movers Lab early this year.
“I am passionate about bringing breakthrough technology to market, and I’m thrilled to be working with Blake and the rest of the Boom board and team to deliver a sustainable supersonic renaissance,” Huque said in a statement.
In addition to the $45 million that Huque invested, American Express Ventures last month made a strategic investment in Boom to help fund Overture’s development, the companies announced. The amount has not been disclosed.
Boom is not the only supersonic travel company in which Prime Movers Lab has invested. Last month, it led a $3 million seed-stage round in Houston-based Venus Aerospace.
The company is among the Denver area’s best-known unicorns — startups valued at more than $1 billion. It’s building a 65-passenger supersonic airliner, known as Overture, capable of flying twice the speed of sound and which has attracted big-name backers like Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and booked advanced orders from international airlines.
Boom Aerospace’s XB-1 test plane is slated for its first flights in the Mojave Desert testing grounds in California this year or early next year.
The single-seat, 73-foot-long plane is meant to prove engine and design elements and inform the final design and manufacturing of the company’s 65-passenger Overture jet. That jet may start commercial production as soon as 2023, the company says.
Please read full story at Denver Business Journal.