Platform Capital, Nigeria’s PE firm, invests in First Flying Electric Jet Car Company

Platform Capital, a leading growth markets investor, has announced that it is investing in Leo Flight Corp., the world’s first flying electric jet car company.

The company has developed the Leo Coupe which is an all-electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) flying car that can travel 300 miles at 250mph on a single charge with a capacity of three (3) passengers and conveniently fits in a 2-car garage. 

The same company is also developing VertiStop, a small, modular landing pad that doubles as a charging system to be proliferated easily and broadly, creating near-instant infrastructure in urban, suburban, and rural areas, in parallel with its Leo Coupe flying cars. 

The Leo Coupe was developed to exceed existing competitors using proven, compact, and efficient propulsion housed within the body of the aircraft. In recognition and acknowledgement of the company’s innovation and cutting-edge category technology, it emerged as the winner of “Future Scaping Our Skies”, a competition sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as one of the nine awardees from 3,000 total competitors. 

The platform understands and believes that fixing urban mobility can potentially have the same level of impact on the lives of Africans. For a continent that has struggled with bridging its infrastructure gap and fixing how people and goods move from point to point, finding alternative ways to deliver well-functioning transportation systems en masse over the long term is critical to our sustained prosperity and wellbeing as a people. 

Well-concerted efforts are required across the stakeholder spectrum to deliver this innovation on the continent, starting from the government – helping shape regulation, infrastructure development – plan, design, integrate new methods and assets into urban and regional planning frameworks.

As part of the transaction, Dr Akintoye Akindele, Chairman of Platform Capital will be joining the advisory board of LEO Flight Corp. to provide support and guidance to Pete, Carlos, and the rest of the team in achieving this ambitious but crucial goal of revolutionizing mobility for the world’s urban cities.

“As cities grow and evolve to become more modern and adapted for life as we know it today and what it would be in the future, the way we think of infrastructure also has to change. For decades, mankind has not fully leapfrogged how it moves from point to point even if urbanization has been on a consistent upward trajectory for a long time. Urban mobility is key to the design, development, operation, and sustainability of cities, both in developed and developing countries. The work Leo Flight Corp. is doing in changing how people and things move is simply mind-blowing, and we are proud to embark on this journey with the team. Electric flying vehicles will improve air quality in cities and deliver more convenient means of transportation. Electric flying cars will produce zero carbon emissions when flying, thereby reducing air pollution considerably and by extension, creating a strong environmental impact. As with our other investments globally, we will seek to work with the team to explore, research, understand and design how Leo Flight Corp.’s technology can be transferred and applied in Africa, as the continent is also facing rapid urbanization in its major cities.” He said.

In response to the speech, the co-founders of Leo Flight Corp, Pete Bitar and Carlos Salaff said; “We are excited to partner with Platform Capital, a company that sees an opportunity to utilize LEO Flight’s technology to transform human mobility in Africa and beyond.”