The Deep End #9
Ultra-quiet propulsor technology and SpaceX's rapid unscheduled disassembly
🌌 Hi everyone, Robert here. I hope you’re enjoying The Deep End, a subsection of the Airframe newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed yet, join the pioneering aerospace executives, investors, and deep tech operators who read Airframe and The Deep End weekly.
Whisper Aero raises $32M for ultra-quiet air mobility
On Whisper’s new capital:
Whisper has recently closed a $32 million Series A led jointly by Menlo Ventures, EVE Atlas, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund and Connor Capital. Additional participation came from Kindred Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Moving Capital, AeroX Ventures, Cosmos Ventures, Linse Capital and LaunchTN, a public-private partnership with the state of Tennessee.
On Whisper’s technology:
Whisper has designed an electric ducted fan that can be scaled up or down for different applications. Over the past two years, the company has designed, built and flown nine generations of this propulsor. They’ve settled on a product that both reduces the amplitude — how loud something is — and that shifts the tonal profile of the noise to something more pleasant. The company says they’ve even been able to move some of the tones into the ultrasonic, beyond what the human ear can detect.
SpaceX’s “rapid unscheduled disassembly”
A great photo of the launch here.
China vs the US on battery production
As the U.S. tries to decouple supply chains from China, the battery market is a battle zone. Wall Street Journal shares more here.