Kitty Hawk, the electric aircraft moonshot backed by Larry Page, is shutting down
Kitty Hawk, the electric aviation startup founded and led by the “godfather of self-driving cars” Sebastian Thrun and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, is shutting down.
“We have made the decision to wind down Kittyhawk. We’re still working on the details of what’s next,” the posts on social media read.
Efforts to reach Thrun or a company spokesperson have been unsuccessful. TechCrunch will update the article if more information is provided.
Kitty Hawk was founded by in 2010 Thrun with backing from Page. Page had tapped Thrun, a longtime friend and adviser who co-founded X, the Alphabet moonshot factory, to lead the company.
Kitty Hawk operated largely in secret for years — except for the occasional media scoop — until the middle of the decade when it introduced its Flyer aircraft. The single-seater, all-electric, vertical take-off and landing vehicle was the company’s inaugural moonshot to develop an ultralight electric flying car designed for anyone to use.
Kitty Hawk built and flew 111 aircraft and conducted more than 25,000 successful crewed and uncrewed flights with its fleet. However, that program was shuttered in June 2020 — and about 70 employees were laid off — to make room for Heaviside, a more capable, quieter and once-secret electric aircraft that could fly and land anywhere autonomously. Heaviside had been in development since 2015, but it wasn’t revealed publicly until the 2019 TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
