This Entrepreneur Raised $44 Million To Build The World’s First Electric Business Aircraft With Low Emission Hydrogen Propulsion

In the heart of a quiet French village, a young girl stared at the night sky, dreaming of the stars and the mysteries of space. That girl, Eloa Guillotin, would grow up to co-found Beyond Aero, a groundbreaking company building hydrogen-electric planes, redefining the future of aviation.

Eloa’s journey is a testament to the power of determination, innovation, and collaboration. In this exciting interview, she talks about innovating in an industry that isn’t easy to operate and getting exceptional momentum with her latest funding round.

Eloa also reveals her experiences as an athlete building an engineering-driven business with her co-founders, creating the initial prototype, which was a time-consuming task, and exploring accelerator programs as a deep tech company.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

A Dream Born Under the Stars

Eloa’s fascination with aerospace began early. Growing up in Saint-Suliac, a small village in France, she spent her childhood gazing at the stars and talking to her former test pilot neighbor about planes and space travel.

Eloa’s fascination was nurtured by books about planets and rockets and even a self-taught attempt at learning Russian to prepare for the cosmonaut pathway. Despite having no family background in engineering, entrepreneurship, or aerospace, her dreams took flight.

At 17, Eloa left her hometown to study aerospace engineering in Toulouse, the heart of France’s aviation industry. She later pursued a dual master’s degree in aerospace and business, realizing that her aspirations extended beyond engineering.

Eloa wanted to invent products, bring them to market, and make a meaningful impact. She wanted to not just innovate products, but also learn more about how its subsystem would work.

An Entrepreneurial Spirit From the Start

Eloa’s entrepreneurial flair was evident long before her aerospace ventures. As an eight-year-old, she made and sold chocolates at Christmas markets. At 13, she collected golf balls at the court, cleaned them, and sold them back to golfers.

This natural inclination for business combined seamlessly with Eloa’s passion for aerospace, setting the stage for Beyond Aero’s inception. Her first steps into entrepreneurship involved various engineering projects, from creating solar-powered backpacks to exploring smartphone innovations.

These projects, along with collaborations with her future co-founders Hugo and Valentin, honed her skills and clarified her vision: to innovate in aviation while addressing pressing environmental challenges.

Building Beyond Aero: A Pandemic Pivot

The story of Beyond Aero began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eloa, Hugo, and Valentin intended to stay in California and build a company. Instead, they found themselves back in their hometowns, reflecting on their goals and past projects. They even ended by graduating via Zoom.

Frustrated by stalled plans and fueled by a desire to build something meaningful, the trio laid the groundwork for their company.

Their discussions centered on three core pillars for success:

• Market Opportunity: Identifying a niche with potential for innovation and growth and relying on existing technology.
• Passion & Expertise: Pursuing a project they loved enough to dedicate endless hours to.
• People: Building a complementary and collaborative team.

The result was Beyond Aero, a company committed to developing a fully hydrogen-electric private jet. As Eloa recalls, Valentin was working on the certification path for electric engines at the time, and Hugo had experience working on fuel cells and hydrogen propulsion.

Eloa herself was more focused on marketing and entrepreneurship. The three combined their skills and quickly realized that conventional aircraft are causing too much pollution. They foresaw that aviation would soon go electric. This became the vision and baseline for Beyond Aero.

At Beyond Aero, they developed a fully electric plane with a six-seater design and a range of 800 nautical miles (1,000 miles). The jet addresses the aviation industry’s urgent need for sustainable alternatives.

Unlike traditional electric planes, which rely on heavy lithium batteries, Beyond Aero leverages hydrogen propulsion to achieve longer ranges and lower environmental impact.

Co-Founder Dynamics: Lessons in Collaboration

Eloa explains that the three co-founders had robust relationships and management. Their athletic background—Eloa in gymnastics, Hugo in track and field, and Valentin in swimming—developed a competitive yet cooperative nature in the company culture.

Most importantly, their definition of success did not involve overlapping one another, which was a great foundation. The success of Beyond Aero owes much to the unique dynamic between its three co-founders.

Over the years, Eloa, Hugo, and Valentin have built a relationship based on trust, self-awareness, and mutual respect. To maintain this harmony, the trio practices structured feedback sessions every quarter.

These retreats in the Alps provide a space for honest communication, where each co-founder shares strengths, areas for improvement, and actionable solutions. This active listening and vulnerability process has been crucial in building a resilient and united leadership team.

Eloa also draws parallels between startups and sports teams. “We are not a family,” she explains. “We’re a professional team, like in rugby or soccer, where everyone has a clear role but works towards a shared goal. That balance of professionalism and camaraderie is what drives us.”

This thesis has also formed the basis for recruiting talent. Eloa explains their stress on hiring people with a very sensitive, high standard out of sports, which makes them disciplined. They can balance work and downtime and work autonomously through their ups and downs.

Beyond Aero Business Model

Eloa explains that her vision for Beyond Aero rests on three pillars.

• Traditional private jets release two tons of CO2 per hour. The market needs electric private jets, and Beyond Aero caters to a more wealthy clientele that can invest in greener alternatives.
• Their plans rely on mature technology using existing gas hydrogen, tanks, fuel cells, and electric engines. The core IP of the company is to redesign the plane around an existing powertrain. They rely on the automobile industry, Formula One suppliers, and aerospace suppliers to design a plan adapted to hydrogen.
• Beyond Aero has a safety-first mission, getting certification for the business plane. Its commitment to certification ensures that its innovations meet the highest safety standards, which is non-negotiable in the aerospace industry.

In terms of the business model, Eloa reveals that it makes money by certifying and selling the plane. They also offer chargeable services and maintenance fees throughout the plane’s lifecycle.

Navigating Deep Tech at the Y Combinator

As a deep-tech startup, Beyond Aero faced unique hurdles. The journey has been anything but easy, from securing funding to navigating complex aviation regulations. The turning point came in 2022 when Beyond Aero joined Y Combinator (YC), a renowned accelerator program.

As Eloa recalls, YC would accept just one aviation company per batch. Beyond Aero was the hydrogen plane of YC. Further, they couldn’t apply using typical metrics like ARR or KPI. However, that was not a deterrent since YC has dedicated deep tech companies as partners.

“YC pushed us to focus on the core principle of entrepreneurship: make something people want,” Eloa recalls. This philosophy drove the team to secure over $1B in letters of intent (LOIs) from potential clients, proving demand for their product even in the early stages.

Building the First Prototype

Although it took them two years to build the initial prototype, Eloa and her co-founders could leverage the YC landing page and were confident they would have customers at the end of the road.

At Beyond Aero, they had the mission in place and knew which plane they wanted to build and the target market. All that remained was assessing the technical challenges and retro planning they wanted to de-risk.

To be able to build a prototype, Eloa and her co-founders asked questions like:

• What are the technical challenges to be de-risked? That was the first sequence to assess the level of maturity.
• What are the components that can be bought?
• What components need to be built on spec?
• Who are the right suppliers?

With these answers in place, they were ready to start. The co-founders had assessed the goal, the investment, and the people behind it. Next, they identified partners and began building. Ultimately, their goal was to de-risk the architecture of the powertrain subscale.

They designed, integrated, and tested on the ground. Next, they did test flights of France’s first hydrogen-electric plane, the most powerful one in Europe. Eloa recalls how they had to get special permits to fly since it was an innovative plane.

The Fundraising Journey

Eloa reveals that they ran three and a half fundraising campaigns for Beyond Aero. They initially raised a round in Europe before applying to the Y Combinator. Next, they did a SAFEs round before their series A, closing at $20M.

Recently, Beyond Aero attracted another $44M, including a small percentage in grants. Eloa credits her fundraising success to in-person meetings. She would fly around the world to meet potential investors personally.

Storytelling is everything that Eloa Guillotin was able to master. The key is capturing the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here), where the most critical slides are highlighted.

Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.

Eloa’s vision for the future is a world where aviation has evolved to electric private jets, electric regional planes, and electric commuters. She stresses, however, that her vision for electric planes does not involve lithium batteries, but hydrogen propulsion.

Eloa would like to see a robust market with innovative technology and a streamlined certification path for not just business aircraft but also mainstream commercial aircraft for families.

In Conclusion

While the timeline for Eloa’s vision remains uncertain, her confidence in its inevitability is unwavering. Beyond Aero is not just building planes but redefining the aviation landscape, proving that sustainability and innovation can go hand in hand.

Through perseverance, collaboration, and a relentless pursuit of their mission, Eloa Guillotin and her team are turning a childhood dream into a reality that could change the world. Beyond Aero stands as a beacon of what’s possible when passion meets purpose.

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Eloa Guillotin’s fascination with aerospace began in a small French village, proving that ambition can thrive anywhere.
• Beyond Aero combines innovation with sustainability, tackling aviation’s environmental challenges through hydrogen-electric planes.
• Structured feedback and clear roles among co-founders ensure a harmonious and effective collaboration.
• Pivoting during the pandemic led to the creation of Beyond Aero, showing resilience in the face of adversity.
• Using mature technologies adapted for aviation helps Beyond Aero balance innovation with safety and feasibility.
• Securing almost $1B in LOIs early validated Beyond Aero’s market opportunity and potential.
• Eloa’s ultimate dream of an all-electric sky showcases the transformative power of long-term goals.

 

SUBSCRIBE ON:

For a winning deck, see the commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400M (see it here). 

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.