Skip to content 
The founders of Seattle-based Outbound Aerospace aim to revolutionize the aviation industry with their innovative blended-wing airplane design, leveraging advances in 3D printing and lightweight materials. They’ve secured a commitment of up to $500,000 to propel their idea into reality.
Outbound seeks to emulate the rapid innovation that catapulted SpaceX to prominence in the launch industry. Thus, could it be fitting to dub it the “SpaceX of aviation”?
“Everyone says they’re the SpaceX of, you know, ‘Z’,” said Jake Armenta, a former Boeing engineer and one of Outbound’s founders who serves as the chief technology officer. “But I really hope that we can harness a lot of that energy in our company.”
Despite Outbound still being in stealth mode, Armenta has recently shared more details about the venture and its vision for the future, fueled by a series of positive developments.
Armenta and his co-founder, Outbound CEO Ian Lee, have known each other since their days as engineering students at Missouri University of Science and Technology. While Lee ventured into medical devices post-graduation, Armenta tackled various Boeing projects, including the 777X jetliner and the Starliner space taxi.
Over time, Armenta grew fascinated with the burgeoning commercial space ventures. In 2020, he left Boeing to work as an engineer at Relativity Space, which launched its first 3D-printed rocket last year.
Armenta’s aerospace frontier work led him to believe that new technologies could disrupt traditional aircraft design, much like they did in rocketry.
“Many of these technologies that have been game-changing in rocketry can be brought over and are very directly applicable to aircraft,” he said. “Because essentially, a very large flying rocket and a very large aircraft are kind of similar in terms of what they’re doing, and in terms of the disciplines and the skills that you need to involve to make each one work.”
Since leaving Relativity Space in early 2023, Armenta and Lee have spent more than a year refining their blended-wing airplane design, dubbed Olympic. Armenta mentioned that the design could potentially scale to the size of a midsize Boeing 757 passenger jet.
“We are using a bunch of 3D printing in it, in a handful of places,” Armenta said. “We do have a patented manufacturing process that we’re still working through.”
Could Outbound Aerospace truly create a new kind of passenger aircraft, rivaling giants like Boeing and Airbus? It may seem ambitious for a stealthy startup to aim for such a feat, typically requiring millions or even billions of dollars. But Outbound’s founders are taking actionable steps.
Armenta noted that Outbound raised about $60,000 in angel funding earlier this year. Then they secured a funding commitment from a venture capital firm called Antler. According to Rike Bergérus, Antler’s vice president and global head of communications, the firm is investing $250,000 in Outbound, with an additional commitment to match 50% of funds raised from external investors, up to $250K.
The funding commitments will enable Outbound to take the next steps, including building a one-eighth-scale variant of their aircraft, a demonstrator plane. This demonstrator is being constructed in Dallas, close to Lee’s base, utilizing innovative 3D-printing techniques. The plane will undergo final integration in Seattle and proceed to flight tests in Oregon “well before the end of the year,” Armenta said.
Outbound is collaborating with Collinear Group, an engineering consulting firm based in Renton, Wash., to develop certification plans.
“We have on payroll seven people formally employed here,” Armenta said from Dallas. “We have about another eight people who are contracting and consulting at various levels. Our team includes people from Hermeus, myself from Relativity Space, others from Relativity and companies like SpaceX and Stoke. Additionally, we have between five and ten volunteers.”
However, Outbound Aerospace lacks a billionaire backer. SpaceX has Elon Musk. Relativity Space has Mark Cuban. Stoke Space has Bill Gates. Hermeus has Steve Case. Armenta hopes that the flight of the subscale demonstrator will attract the financial support needed for Outbound to soar.
“We’re going to raise a little more to close out this pre-seed round, and then at the end of this year—after we fly our demonstrator and unveil our full-size design—we’ll initiate a large seed round comparable to what other aerospace startups are doing,” Armenta said. “And from there, we intend to keep going.”
How closely will Outbound Aerospace follow Armenta’s ambitious flight plan? Stay tuned—the next six months promise to be an exciting journey.
