Seattle-based aerospace startup Radical has raised a $4.5 million seed round.
The company announced the funding on Wednesday, adding that the money will grow Radical's team and help develop its technology. Radical co-founder and CEO James Thomas said the company has four employees, all of whom are based in Seattle, but the team will likely have about 10 people by the end of the year.
"The capital helps us accelerate toward flying a full-scale aircraft," Thomas said. "A lot of it is about building the team. A lot of it is about putting together prototypes and testing."
On it website, Radical has multiple open roles listed in engineering.
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Radical, founded in 2022, is making solar-powered aircraft designed to fly continuously in the stratosphere. Thomas said this type of aircraft has applications in telecommunications and environmental observation, for example tracking events such as fires. He added that there are other, more specific uses for a variety of customers.
The company flew a smaller version of its aircraft for 24 hours last year but plans to fly a full-scale model in the next year, after which it will start working with customers to deliver aircraft.
At the start of this year, Radical took a new space in Ballard. The company is keeping the specific location under wraps, but Thomas said it includes offices and warehouse space to build aircraft.
Thomas worked in engineering and research roles for Amazon Prime Air for almost six years, according to his LinkedIn page. Cyriel Notteboom, the company's co-founder and chief technology officer, spent more than six years at Amazon as a hardware development engineer, his LinkedIn page notes.
Scout Ventures led the seed round, while Inflection Mercury Fund and Y Combinator participated. Scout Ventures has invested in the identity verification company ID.me and the space exploration company Voyager Space.
"We're super excited about this fundraising," Thomas said. "It really allows us to accelerate the timelines. The technology we're building is really a technology for persistent airborne infrastructure. There are huge possibilities this opens up."
