Who owns Joby Aviation? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Joby Aviation wants to build the air taxi. The company designs and plans to operate an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that carries one pilot and four passengers on short city hops. It is not selling many aircraft yet, and it has not flown a paying passenger. Yet it is one of the most closely watched names in aviation, because it is racing to be first through the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification gate that would let electric air taxis fly commercially.

Ownership is central to that story. Joby is capital-hungry by design. Certifying a new aircraft type and standing up a factory costs billions before a single ticket is sold. To fund that, Joby has leaned on a mix of public market investors, a deep-pocketed strategic partner in Toyota, and airline and ride-hail relationships that bring both cash and a route to customers. Understanding who holds the shares explains who is steering the company and who is bankrolling the wait for revenue.

This article breaks down how Joby is owned: its founder, its strategic backers, its institutional shareholders, and the people in control. It also covers the regulatory and financial risks that shape the value of every share.

Joby Aviation was founded in 2009 by JoeBen Bevirt, an engineer and serial inventor who started the company in a workshop known as "The Barn" in the mountains above Santa Cruz, California. The company is headquartered in Santa Cruz.

Joby designs an all-electric aircraft that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter but flies on tilting rotors like a plane. The business model is unusual for an aircraft maker. Rather than mainly selling planes to airlines, Joby plans to certify the aircraft, manufacture it, and operate its own branded air taxi service, keeping the customer relationship end to end. It also runs a helicopter and seaplane operator, Blade, which it acquired to build early passenger operations and revenue.

Revenue is still small relative to the company's ambitions. Joby raised its 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $115 million to $125 million, supported largely by its Blade passenger business. In the second quarter of 2026, the company reported about $38.6 million in revenue and a net loss of roughly $245 million. Its market capitalization stood near $7.1 billion in late August 2026, with the stock around $7.27, down sharply from the prior year. For a pre-revenue company, that figure reflects expected future value rather than current earnings, the kind of gap a business valuation calculator helps frame.

Joby Aviation is publicly held. Its shares trade on the NYSE under the ticker JOBY. The company went public on August 11, 2021, by merging with Reinvent Technology Partners, a SPAC run by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. The deal valued the combined company at about $6.6 billion and provided more than $1.6 billion in cash. As a public company, Joby's ownership is spread across founders, strategic investors, institutions, and retail shareholders, and its major holders are disclosed in regulatory filings. As of May 4, 2026, Joby had about 983.6 million common shares outstanding.

JoeBen Bevirt remains the company's largest individual shareholder. Filings from August 2026 show he beneficially owned roughly 90 million shares, about 6.1% of the company. Most of that is held indirectly through family vehicles, including The Joby Trust and the JoeBen Bevirt 2020 Descendants Trust, with only a small block held directly. That structure is common for founders who took a company public. Bevirt has sold modest amounts of stock over time under pre-arranged trading plans, but he retains a large economic stake tied to the company's long-term success. Precise founder holdings shift with each new filing, so the exact percentage should be read as a recent snapshot rather than a fixed figure.

Joby raised money privately for more than a decade before its public listing. The table below traces its major financing milestones. Some early-round figures are approximate, and pre-IPO valuations were not always disclosed.

Toyota Motor Corporation is the anchor of Joby's shareholder base. It led the $590 million Series C in 2020, then announced a further $500 million investment across 2024 and 2025 that brought its total commitment to roughly $894 million. Toyota owned about 128.5 million shares, near 13.1% of the company, according to a mid-2026 filing. The relationship goes beyond capital. Toyota has embedded engineers to deploy the Toyota Production System on Joby's manufacturing line, and in mid-2026 the two formed a manufacturing joint venture, owned 51% by Toyota and 49% by Joby, to prepare for volume production.

Baillie Gifford, the Scottish investment manager known for long-horizon technology bets, is one of the largest institutional holders, with roughly 62 million shares, close to 7% of the company. Vanguard Group follows with about 52 million shares, near 6%. Together with Toyota, these three holders control a meaningful share of the company. Overall institutional ownership was reported around 49.5% in early 2026, spread across roughly 500 reporting institutions.

Uber Technologies and Delta Air Lines hold smaller stakes tied to commercial partnerships. Uber invested a total of about $125 million and, in 2020, sold its Uber Elevate air taxi unit to Joby in exchange for stock and a partnership. That deal is one thread in how Uber makes money across mobility bets, and Uber's own ownership structure is worth comparing. Delta invested $60 million in 2022 for roughly a 2% stake, with the option to grow that to as much as $200 million, and took a board relationship as part of a plan to offer home-to-airport rides.

Joby has a single class of common stock, so voting power broadly tracks economic ownership rather than concentrating control in a founder super-voting class. That makes the shareholder base relatively democratic for a founder-led technology company. It also means no single holder controls the company outright. Toyota's roughly 13% stake makes it the most influential investor, but it does not confer majority control.

JoeBen Bevirt is founder and CEO and has led Joby since 2009. He sets strategy and remains the largest individual owner. Paul Sciarra, a co-founder of Pinterest and Joby's first outside investor, serves as executive chairman of the board. Matthew A. Field joined as chief financial officer, bringing more than two decades of finance experience from Ford, where he ran the finances of the company's largest automotive division.

The board mixes founders, investor representatives, and independent directors. At the June 2026 annual meeting, shareholders reelected Class II directors including Paul Sciarra, Halimah DeLaine Prado, and Laura Wright. Strategic partners have historically held board relationships tied to their investments, most notably Toyota and Delta. Because Joby has a single share class, the board answers to a broad shareholder base rather than to a controlling founder bloc, though Bevirt's role as founder-CEO gives him strong practical influence over direction.

Joby's entire value rests on regulatory approval it does not yet hold. The company must earn an FAA type certificate for its aircraft, then an air carrier certificate to operate it commercially. Joby has advanced into the final stages of the multi-part FAA process, including flights of an FAA-conforming aircraft, but the last testing and approval stage remained incomplete through 2026. Any slip in that timeline pushes out the date of first revenue and raises the amount of cash the company must burn while it waits. This is the central risk for every shareholder, and the kind of exposure a formal risk register template is built to track.

Joby loses money and will keep doing so until commercial flights scale. It reported a net loss of about $245 million in the second quarter of 2026 and guided to $385 million to $415 million of cash use in the second half of the year. The company has funded itself through repeated stock and debt sales, including a roughly $1.29 billion offering in 2025. Each equity raise dilutes existing holders. The large cash balance of about $2.3 billion is a cushion, not a guarantee, and continued fundraising is likely before the business turns cash-positive.

Toyota is both Joby's largest shareholder and its manufacturing partner, which concentrates risk. The 2026 joint venture is majority-owned by Toyota, giving the automaker significant say over how Joby's aircraft get built at scale. That partnership brings world-class production expertise and capital, but it also ties Joby's manufacturing future to the priorities of a single strategic investor. A change in Toyota's commitment would carry outsized weight.

Joby is pushing into overseas markets, including a planned launch in Dubai with vertiports at sites such as Dubai International Airport, ahead of full United States commercial approval. Operating across regulatory regimes adds complexity. Joby also competes directly with other well-funded eVTOL developers, including Archer Aviation, which is backed by rival airline and automaker partners. Like other capital-hungry aerospace names that reached public markets through SPAC deals, such as Rocket Lab, Joby must keep raising money while it proves out its technology. Being first to certify would be a major advantage, but the race is close and the outcome is not settled.

Ownership explains how Joby can spend years and billions of dollars before earning meaningful revenue. A company with no certified product and heavy losses can only survive if its backers are willing to wait. Joby's shareholder base, anchored by Toyota, backed by patient institutions like Baillie Gifford, and supported by strategic partners in Uber and Delta, is built for exactly that patience. These are investors buying a long-dated bet on a new category of transport, not near-term profits.

The Toyota relationship is the most consequential. As the largest shareholder, a nearly $894 million investor, and now the majority owner of the manufacturing joint venture, Toyota shapes how Joby will actually build aircraft. That is a strength, because few partners can match Toyota's production knowledge, and a risk, because it concentrates influence over Joby's future in one company. For a firm whose success hinges on manufacturing at scale, the identity of its production partner is close to a strategic decision made on the shareholders' behalf.

The single-class share structure matters too. Unlike many founder-led technology companies, Joby did not give Bevirt super-voting shares. Voting power tracks economic ownership, so large holders like Toyota and Baillie Gifford have real influence, and no founder bloc can override the market. That makes Joby more accountable to its broad shareholder base, but it also means the company could face pressure from investors if certification slips or losses widen.

For retail investors, the takeaway is that Joby is a high-risk, high-reward holding whose value depends on a regulatory milestone it has not yet crossed. The presence of serious strategic and institutional owners lends credibility, but it does not remove the core uncertainty. The people who own Joby are betting that the air taxi arrives. Until it flies a paying passenger, that bet remains unproven.

JoeBen Bevirt is the CEO of Joby Aviation. He founded the company in 2009 and has led it since. He is also its largest individual shareholder, with roughly 90 million shares held mostly through family trusts.

Yes. Joby Aviation trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker JOBY. It went public in August 2021 through a merger with Reinvent Technology Partners, a SPAC led by Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus.

Engineer and inventor JoeBen Bevirt founded Joby Aviation in 2009 in Santa Cruz, California. He started the company in a hillside workshop and named it after a childhood nickname.

Toyota Motor Corporation is the largest shareholder, with about 128.5 million shares, near 13.1% of the company. Baillie Gifford and Vanguard Group are the next-largest institutional holders, and founder JoeBen Bevirt owns roughly 6.1%. Uber and Delta Air Lines hold smaller strategic stakes.

Joby has raised billions across private rounds, its 2021 SPAC listing, and public offerings. Key milestones include a $590 million Series C led by Toyota in 2020, more than $1.6 billion from the SPAC merger, a $500 million Toyota investment across 2024 and 2025, and a roughly $1.29 billion equity and debt offering in 2025. It held about $2.3 billion in cash and short-term investments at June 30, 2026.

Toyota does not own Joby outright. It is the single largest shareholder, with about 13.1% of the stock, and has committed close to $894 million. Toyota also owns 51% of a 2026 manufacturing joint venture with Joby. That gives Toyota major influence, but not control of the company.