REGENT Raises $240 Million Series B to Build Seagliders
REGENT Craft (regentcraft.com) has raised $240 million in a Series B round split evenly between equity and debt. Mare Liberum and AE Ventures co-led the equity, with Erebor Bank providing the debt. DCVC joined as a new investor, and existing backers including Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Japan Airlines and Giant Step Capital also participated. The Y Combinator-backed company builds Seagliders, all-electric wing-in-ground-effect vessels that operate from the water and fly close to its surface, carrying passengers or cargo between coastal points without runways or airports.
The round closes as REGENT approaches a cluster of milestones: the first flight of its Viceroy prototype with people on board, new military partnerships, and the start of production at a 255,000-square-foot Seaglider manufacturing plant in Rhode Island that was recently completed.
Defense demand has been the sharper part of the story over the past year. REGENT has an expanded contract with the US Marine Corps for the crewed Viceroy platform and growing interest in Squire, its autonomous Seaglider drone, which completed its first ground-effect flight in April. On the commercial side, the company says its order book now spans six continents and that it has booked multiple years of manufacturing capacity. Its first US delivery and launch partner is The Twenty Five, a membership travel platform that, according to Axios, has a purchase order for as many as 60 Seagliders for East Coast routes.
"This investment marks a critical inflection point for REGENT as we move from development into production."
Billy Thalheimer, co-founder and CEO of REGENTMare Liberum, whose general partners include Admiral Lorin Selby, invests at the intersection of maritime operations and national security and had backed REGENT in earlier rounds. AE Ventures is the venture arm of AE Industrial Partners, which focuses on aerospace and defense. Pioneer Fund and Y Combinator backed the company at pre-seed, and Caffeinated Capital led REGENT's $9 million seed in 2021, joined by Founders Fund, Thiel Capital and Mark Cuban. Founders Fund went on to co-lead the company's $60 million Series A in 2023 alongside 8090 Industries.
Internationally, REGENT is working with the Strategic Development Fund, an Abu Dhabi investment company owned by EDGE Group, on early Seaglider operations and possible manufacturing expansion in the UAE. It has also partnered with Balnord in Poland on Baltic Sea defense requirements and with iGrow in Greece on commercial routes across the Aegean Islands.
Next up is putting people aboard the Viceroy prototype and clearing the certification work that stands between the current test campaign and paying passengers.