Kitty Hawk

Kitty Hawk was a Palo Alto, California-based developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, focusing on personal and urban air mobility. The company built 111 aircraft and conducted over 25,000 piloted and autonomous flights, developing prototypes like the single-seat Flyer and Heaviside air taxi. It received hundreds of millions in funding, primarily from Google co-founder Larry Page, and was led by figures such as former CEO Sebastian Thrun. Lead engineers Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert were instrumental in its development; the company also spun off its Cora program into Wisk Aero in 2019. Kitty Hawk ceased operations around September 2023, following its Heaviside project shutdown in April 2022, having been founded in 2015 by Larry Page. Its business model centers on privately funded through investments, primarily from Larry Page via an anonymous LLC.