Jeremy Bogaisky

The Boston-based startup has impressed investors like Baillie Gifford with its work to bring autonomy to U.S. Air Force C-130J transport planes and a canny strategy that could make it the first company to win safety approval for a semi-autonomous flight control system in a civil aircraft.

After being drummed out of Silicon Valley as a Trump-supporting hawk, the onetime VR wunderkind Palmer Luckey is feeling vindicated. His $8 billion defense tech startup, Anduril, is arming Ukraine and building the weapons of the future—before the Pentagon even knows it wants them.

Beta Technologies, founded by former pro hockey player and Harvard grad Kyle Clark, may be on the verge of bringing workhorse battery-powered cargo planes to America’s skies that take off and land like helicopters.

Electric air taxi startups are at least a few years from picking up their first passengers, but the sector has minted its first billionaire: Joby Aviation founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt, whose stake in the company is worth $1.08 billion at the Tuesday closing price of its stock.

Shares of Joby commenced trading on the NYSE on Wednesday after it completed a reverse merger with a Reid Hoffman-owned SPAC. Here’s the upside to investing in one of the leaders in the air taxi race, and the unanswered questions.