Reliable Robotics

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Aug 5, 2026

Overview

Reliable Robotics is a privately held aviation-autonomy company developing certifiable automation for commercial and defense aircraft. Its stated goal is safer, more available, more affordable air transportation for moving goods and eventually people. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, it has a distributed workforce.

Primary product

Reliable Autonomy System (RAS): an aircraft-independent, FAA-certifiable autonomy stack intended to automate taxi, takeoff, flight, landing and parking, with remote pilot supervision. Related capabilities include safety-critical C2 links and detect-and-avoid.

Founded

2017

Headquarters

Mountain View, California, United States

Team size

150-200

Work style

Onsite

Industry

Airlines and Aviation

Sub-industry

Aircraft autonomy, aerospace robotics, uncrewed and remotely piloted cargo aircraft

Offices

Mountain View, California (headquarters)

Albuquerque, New Mexico (Reliable Airlines subsidiary / operations)

Business model

B2B aircraft-autonomy system sales or deployment

Commercial air-cargo operations through Reliable Airlines

Government and defense contracts

Research and development partnerships with NASA, FAA and other public-sector entities

Funding

Stage

Late-stage venture / Series D

Total raised

$330.6M

Latest round

Series D / new investment · Apr 2026

Latest amount

$160M

Series D / new investment

Apr 2026 · Nimble Partners

$160M

TACFI grant

Sep 2024 · AFWERX / U.S. Air Force

$3.6M

Series C

Oct 2021 · Coatue Management

$100M

Venture financing / emergence from stealth

Aug 2020 · Lightspeed Venture Partners and Eclipse Ventures

$33.5M

Series B

Mar 2019 · Eclipse Ventures

$25M

Seed / initial financing

Lightspeed Venture Partners

$8.5M

People & investors

Leadership

Robert Rose

Co-founder and CEO

Juerg Frefel

Co-founder and CTO

Marc Stoll

Chief Financial Officer

Mike Metheny

Director of Flight Software

John Woods

Director of Government Operations

Chris Schulenberg

Director of Programs & Certification

Michael Westenhaver

Head of Remote Piloting

Tyree Clowe

Head of Recruiting

Katie Garagozzo

Communications Director

Jeff Drees

Director of Cargo Strategy, Part 135 airline subsidiary

Investors

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Work & culture

Mission-driven, engineering-heavy aerospace and robotics culture focused on safety-critical systems, FAA certification, hands-on aircraft integration, and cross-functional work across software, hardware, avionics, GNC and flight test. Several roles are explicitly onsite at Mountain View HQ.

Work style

Onsite

Visa sponsorship

Limited

Compensation

Public job evidence emphasizes senior engineering experience and onsite work; reliable public compensation ranges were not identified. Roles may involve U.S. export-control and U.S.-person eligibility requirements.

Benefits

Publicly visible recruiting materials indicate engineering and benefits/compliance hiring, but do not provide a complete official benefits list.

Product & market

Pricing

Not publicly disclosed; appears to be negotiated enterprise/government contracts and aircraft-system deployments rather than public self-serve pricing.

Differentiators

—Designed to be aircraft-independent rather than limited to a newly built airframe
—Targets FAA-certifiable, fully automated gate-to-gate operation
—Integrates automation, redundant systems, remote piloting, communications and detect-and-avoid
—Demonstrated unmanned Cessna 172 and Cessna 208 Caravan operations
—Focus on both commercial cargo and defense logistics
—Certification and regulatory work with FAA and NASA

Technology

Safety-critical embedded flight software

Guidance, navigation and controls (GNC)

Autopilot and aircraft automation

Radar-based detect and avoid

ACAS X

Safety-critical command-and-control (C2) links

Remote piloting and control-center interfaces

FPGA and avionics systems

Simulation and human-in-the-loop testing

DO-178C certification processes

C/C++

Python

Ada

VHDL/Verilog

Linux

Docker

Bazel

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

MATLAB

Customers

Commercial air-cargo operators and logistics companies (customer names generally undisclosed)

United States Air Force

Reliable Airlines

Rural and regional communities targeted by the Albuquerque eIPP program

Competitors

Xwing

Elroy Air

Airbus autonomy and UAS programs

Other autonomous or remotely piloted cargo-aircraft developers

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

$10M-$20M annually; an indexed company profile estimates approximately $13M

Signals & risks

Other

Apr 2026

The company remains pre-scale commercial aviation and must complete substantial FAA certification evidence and regulatory work; management said the new capital will fund engineers, production scaling and certification.

Source

Other

Apr 2026

Commercial operations were described as dependent on certification, with broader commercial deployment expected later rather than already being fully operational.

Source

Latest news

Reliable Robotics Announces $160M in New Investment

Business Wire · Apr 2026

Nimble Partners led a $160M round to accelerate RAS deployment and production; the company cited more than 200 commercial and military system commitments.

Reliable Robotics, City of Albuquerque Aviation Department Partner on FAA Advanced Air Mobility Integration Pilot Program

Business Wire · Mar 2026

Reliable and Albuquerque were selected for the FAA/DOT eIPP to conduct autonomous regional air-cargo operations between Albuquerque, Durango and Santa Fe.

Reliable Robotics and NASA Partner to Advance Scalability of Large Remotely-Piloted Aircraft Integration

Business Wire · Aug 2025

NASA and Reliable announced a Space Act Agreement covering detect-and-avoid, C2-link resilience and airport integration simulation research.

Reliable Robotics Raises $100 Million to Expand Access to More Places With Remotely Piloted Cargo Operations

Business Wire · Oct 2021

Coatue led the Series C, taking disclosed cumulative fundraising above $133M at the time and supporting certification and commercial cargo operations.

Reliable Robotics is bringing remote piloting to small cargo planes

TechCrunch · Aug 2020

Coverage described the company’s 2017 founding, early venture backing, and remote-piloting approach for cargo aircraft.

Jobs and careers at Reliable Robotics

56 jobs at Reliable Robotics

FPGA Manager

On-site

Software & Embedded Systems

Seattle, WA; Seattle, WA, United States

3d ago

On-site

Full-time