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Archer Aviation Inc. ACHR

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The bet you're really making is that Archer gets its electric air taxi, a four-seat aircraft called Midnight, approved by the FAA and carrying paying passengers before the money runs out. You're betting that a company with almost no sales, $5 million last quarter, can finish certifying a brand-new kind of aircraft while losing about $263 million every three months. Right now it is bleeding fast: the loss just grew to the largest in its history and cash fell to $853 million, a little over a year at the pace it burns, so it keeps selling new stock to refill the tank. You pay $4.3 billion today for that promise, near the bottom of a stock that has lost more than half its value in the past year.

Key data

Price$5.71
52-week range$4.30 - $14.62
Price / book2.4x
Enterprise value$3.6B

ACHR · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$2$5$8$11$14 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jul '25Feb '26Sep '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

Archer builds Midnight, a battery-powered aircraft that takes off straight up like a helicopter, then flies forward on wings, carrying a pilot and four passengers on short hops of 20 to 50 miles. The idea is to fly people over traffic, airport to downtown, at a price closer to a premium car ride than a helicopter charter. Almost none of that happens yet. There are no paying passengers in the United States, the aircraft is not certified, and revenue is only now appearing in trickles from early overseas and defense work. Launch partners include United Airlines, the city of Abu Dhabi, and defense work alongside Anduril, and Boeing holds a stake large enough to name a board nominee. The real asset is a lead in the FAA certification queue and a factory in Georgia. There is no moat until an aircraft is certified and someone pays to ride it. Everything else is a plan.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05Closing thoughts
  6. 06Methodology

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