Auckland’s flying ferry maker lands NZ$32.6m and its first US customer

Auckland electric hydrofoil builder Vessev has raised US$19 million, about NZ$32.6 million, and named its first American customer as it takes its VS-9 to the United States.

The Series A and follow-on round was led by Blackbird Ventures, the Australasian firm that backed Canva early, with new investors GD1 and Rypples joining existing backers including K1W1, an early Rocket Lab investor, and Icehouse Ventures. The money goes to lifting VS-9 production, growing the New Zealand team, advancing onboard software and developing larger vessels.

The first US customer is FlyTahoe, which plans a sustainable water transit network on Lake Tahoe in California and has ordered multiple VS-9s. The network remains subject to local permits and approvals, which the operator is working to obtain.

An Auckland-built VS-9 named Kermadec has already been shipped across the Pacific, debuting at New York Climate Week before an event in Washington DC and on-water demonstrations at Lake Tahoe later in the year.

“There is no substitute for that feeling you get when the boat lifts out of the water and you feel yourself gliding over it rather than pushing through it,” says Vessev co-founder and chief executive Eric Laakmann. “It feels more like flying than boating.”

Two of the world’s five

The VS-9 carries ten passengers on foils that adjust up to 100 times a second, a system with America’s Cup lineage, lifting the hull clear of the water to eliminate drag and wake. Vessev claims three times the efficiency of a conventional vessel, with a range of 40 nautical miles fully loaded and 50 lightly loaded.

The first VS-9 entered service with Fullers360 in January 2025 as the world’s first certified electric hydrofoiling vessel in a commercial fleet, and the fleet has since logged more than 11,000 nautical miles across New Zealand and Australia. Of the five commercially certified electric hydrofoiling passenger vessels in the world, Laakmann notes, two are VS-9s.

Hobart operator Fly Derwent has doubled its order for its planned Derwent River network, projects are underway in Perth and Sydney, and the company trialled the VS-9 on Lake Wakatipu earlier this year. Vessev now employs 58 people in Auckland and is targeting production of one VS-9 every five weeks through 2027.

“Vessev is bringing world-class engineering from Apple, Tesla, the America’s Cup and Rocket Lab to a massive, long-stagnant industry,” says Blackbird partner Phoebe Harrop Meadows.

The raise lands five months after Swedish rival Candela banked its own $59 million round, a sign that investors on opposite sides of the world have reached the same conclusion about where passenger boating is heading.