REGENT closes $240M Series B to scale seaglider manufacturing in Rhode Island and expand to Abu Dhabi

Speaker 2: Let me tell you about Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents, whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating because it's workflows. Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish. Our next guest is Billy Thalheimer returning to the show with Regent. Billy, how are you doing? Welcome back. What's up, guys? It's been too long. Doing well.

Speaker 3: Been too long. Great to see you.

Speaker 9: It has.

Speaker 2: Give us give us the latest news in Regent World. How are the Seagiliders going?

Speaker 9: We are we're cruising. We're gliding. We just wrapped up our $240,000,000 series b. So that's the big news lately. Give

Speaker 1: me a gog. Come on. Quarter bells? I've been waiting on that. Quarter bell.

Speaker 2: Oh, so good. So, yeah, talk about what it takes to raise for this company. Are you you're you're still pre revenue, but you and you're not actually, like, the product you can't just go as a consumer and test it out, but you have a massive backlog. What are investors looking for? How are you telling the story?

Speaker 9: Yeah. Well, we we do have money coming in the door, importantly. Right? So we have, commercial customers. We have about 10,000,000,000 in the backlog there. But one of the unique things about Regions is we have firm orders, like actual orders, nonrefundable deposits. Yeah. Customers are, putting down we have over 10,000,000 in the bank now that are backing our our backlog now, multiple years now of, delivery from our manufacturing building. So that's on the commercial side. And on the defense side now, up to about 20,000,000 in orders, majority with the Marine Corps, but we have some really big announcements on the horizon here. So the defense business growing really fast.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, typically, you'd assume, like, net 60 pay you know, payment terms or something, but you are able to get some of that money up front. That's good. What does the team look like? Where have you where where is the company based, and how is the actual operation growing?

Speaker 9: Yeah. We're based in Rhode Island. Rhode Island has really been put on the map lately. We're we're leading in maritime and defense. There's a bunch of other companies here, a bunch of start ups. Andrew all moved into town. Like, you go out on Narragansett Bay and you're gonna see all sorts of drone boats out there and subs and sea gliders too. So that's been pretty cool. Worked to about 120 people now at the company, but obviously with the Series B done now, we're going start growing really fast. And the whole point for us is we have this quarter million square foot factory here. That's gonna be building our Seagliders, both our our large Viceroys, the small Squires. Yeah. So we got to fill out the factory. So that's the next step for us.

Speaker 2: I feel like you're in an interesting position because we I mean, we talked maybe years ago about the benefits of being all electric that, yes, there's an environmental benefit but for specific use cases, it might not be that big but the serviceability might be an even bigger benefit. Is that holding true because you're in this dynamic where the current administration is probably very receptive to doing business with a young company, like you mentioned, with the Marine Corps. But at the same time, they're not exactly the biggest fans of electric technology from what I've seen. So, you know, is there is there a discussion of of other powertrains or do you want to remain laser focused? I remember talking to somebody who deployed small, like, basically drone helicopters in the military and said that, like, gas engines work really well. They stay up much longer. The energy density is is fine. The supply chain is there. But how are you dealing with the trade offs of where the where the powertrain technology might go in the future?

Speaker 9: Yeah. We we sort of always have the feeling that on the defense side of the business and particularly in the markets we're going after where we're talking about, moving across thousands of miles across the Indo Pacific, hopping between these islands that we're going to need longer than the couple 100 mile range we get out of batteries, which is really good for commercial. That's your regional range where you're stuck between a car and an airplane. But on the military side, like we need to go from Guam to the first island chain. Like we're going across the Pacific here. So, on that side, definitely hybridizing. About a year ago or a little over a year ago, we announced Regent Defense, and part of that was really a focus on building out this hybrid. So we have sort of a conceptual design now. We've been working on the supply chain side, but we're definitely going to be introducing a, an engine, a fuel engine system that works with our electric propulsion system on the front end, extending our range out to about 1,600 statute miles. So we'll be able to do that.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I've seen these the this very unique hybrid. I believe it's a Chinese car where it is primarily an electric vehicle, but then there is a like, a two cylinder gas engine that just charges the battery. Is that a relevant technology that we're gonna see other places, or was that sort of a unique anomaly of that particular Chinese EV company?

Speaker 9: The answer depends on the application for us. You know, we're a dual use company, obviously. And I think like to be successful in dual use, and there are a few companies that can really say this, is like as much consistency between the commercial and defense products as possible, like as much shared bomb, like basically the same SKU. So our Seagliders are coming off the line here or will, within the next year or so in Rhode Island. And in the commercial version, we're going load it up with batteries and it will go 180 miles. On the defense version, we'll put about 20% of the batteries in. So you still those batteries sort of help you take off and land. We still have that electric propulsion system, is super quiet, super low maintenance, low thermal signature, all these great things. And then instead of the rest of the batteries, that's where we put in our engine and our fuel system.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Tell me more about the commercial backlog. I mean, it seems huge. Where who who's interested? Where where are the logical places to deploy these? Because I imagine that as you've actually built up that book of commercial business, there's been a lot of just assumption testing on the other side of the negotiation table. Maybe you come and say San Francisco to Marina Del Rey. Maybe somebody else is actually it's going to work better here or there. So where are you seeing the future play out first?

Speaker 9: Exactly. I mean, founding the company, we're we're coming up on six years in business now. Growing up, going to school in the Boston area, it was like Boston and New York, right? Right. Start raising money. Yeah. And it was like LA to San Francisco. Yeah. We're raising money. We're all Like, between those are total pain points. So that was sort of the focus on the initial commercial side. Sort of started, obviously, just based in The US as an American company with a US focus. And so that's evolved into Miami to West Palm and The Bahamas as a likely US launch market throughout New England, right, like Boston and Rhode Island and Connecticut down to New York, and certainly some West Coast routes, and obviously Hawaii as well, Pacific Northwest too. But what we found as we've grown is this is actually like truly a global technology. The international order book and backlog is actually much larger than the domestic one. And very few people know this, but there are as many ferry passengers per year as airplane passengers, which is like wild as an American to think that the coastal market is that big. For cargo, there's 90 plus percent of cargo that goes over the coastlines. Almost half the world lives in coastal populations. It's just like how humanity settled the world. So global globally, we're talking about places like the Mediterranean, Japan, throughout The Pacific, right? Like, these are really big markets for us. So it's not just an island hopping machine. It's like anywhere there is coastline and humans live and trade on coastlines, that's our commercial market.

Speaker 2: Is there interest from The Middle East or is are things, like, actually slowing down there because of the geopolitical conflict? Because I I when when I hear about new technology, maybe it's a little bit expensive to get up, but you need to do some retrofitting of some port or something. Like, that feels like Dubai is going to sign up immediately, but what's it been like talking to folks?

Speaker 9: The Middle East has been a big part of our strategy for for a long time, actually. So we we spent a lot time out there. We have a great relationship with, the Strategic Development Fund in Abu Dhabi. So, we actually plan to expand manufacturing. The Series B, our first global manufacturing center here in Rhode Island. But subsequently, and based on the size of that backlog, we're already planning international expansion. So we've set up a joint venture in Abu Dhabi where we're to be scaling manufacturing from there. So The Gulf is going to be huge, not just for manufacturing but also commercially like Dubai, Abu Dhabi. That is a pain point route too. Crazy traffic on that route. And then Yeah. Just I was just

Speaker 3: thinking I've had I was in I I went to Formula One in Abu Dhabi but I was staying in Dubai and that that drive especially when you have these big sort of global events is just brutal. Right? Even the the traffic getting out of Abu Dhabi and and Yeah. Have a ten minute Exactly. Quick flight. Yeah. Question unrelated to to your business, but what's happening on the recreational aviation side? Are we gonna see an elect the sort of the the model three of the skies, sort of an electric Cessna one seventy two, something that is, you know, user friendly, you know, for the sort

Speaker 2: of pure boats, but for

Speaker 3: Yeah. Some something that's like, hey. Just wanna go fly for an hour.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9: There there are certainly some attempts at at electric airplanes and there are some electric trainers out there. But, really the hard point of aircraft generally, and like my background's aviation, and I'm a pilot, my co founder's a pilot, a lot of the teams are pilot. Like, It's the training, tons of time to go out, get your pilot's license, learn how to fly, learn how to do the controls, learn how to navigate airspace, talk to air traffic controllers, etcetera. So that is the big time sync. And then there's also just the performance of, I need enough energy on board in these batteries. And we already talked about the range limitation of batteries, get up to altitude. And then as I'm flying to my airport, all aircraft need reserve fuel. So if I'm flying to my airport, my airport's occupied or, like, something's wrong with it, I need enough fuel to fly and land somewhere else.

Speaker 2: You're a golf course.

Speaker 9: So it's actually, like, all of yeah.

Speaker 2: Right? It's, like, it's good. You're only Harrison Ford. I only keep

Speaker 9: And so, like, that was our perspective coming into this. My cofounder and I came from the aviation world, and we were part of that, like, early wave of electrification. We were working, you know, with the EV tolls and everything, and we said, these are the challenges we need to solve. Electrification is is here in many ways. And by building sea gliders, we solve those problems because we certify, under Coast Guard jurisdiction as a vessel, not an aircraft. Our digital flight controls enable it. So all you need to do is drive a boat. When you're operating it, even when you're flying, the only controls are boat controls, left and right, fast and slow. And so that's what's going to open it up to everyone.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3: Have you seen the people in China selling quad copters that humans can sit in? That they'll just get on those. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. No. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: They like So I saw I saw I saw an another video of these guys that bought a Timu drone Okay. And they were able to you could sit in it, they were flying it with the remote No way. And then they crashed it. Woah. Yes. And so I I just can't believe Scary. I can't believe that you can just order one of these right now. Scary stuff.

Speaker 9: I was I was at, an air show in The Middle East, and I was, no kidding, standing next to Adam Goldstein, at Archer, and we were, like, watching this drone competition. And one of these drones falls out of the sky live at the show. Fortunately, no one was on board. We look at each other like, what is going on here? Like, a, this never flies in America. This would never pass any certification. But, like, crazy stuff like that going on is is actually not good for the industry. Like, aerospace is held to a higher standard. There's a reason why aerospace is known for its safety and commercial aviation is the safest way to travel. Even with us in the maritime domain, we're taking a similarly safe approach because we're flying at high speeds with people on board. So, like, that's our focus, and it's a harder bar to hit, obviously, as a startup, as a company. That's, like, part of the responsibility of building flying machines. But, you know, seeing these guys jumping in with, like, the the sword swinging around and, like, some RC controller, like, I I get a little worried.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Fortune favors the bold, though. Come on. You gotta take some risks. You're an entrepreneur. Hop on this thing. No. No. I think you're right to play it safe here. I completely agree. But thank you so much. Congratulations on the new round.

Speaker 3: Awesome progress.

Speaker 2: And we'll talk to you soon. Have a great one, Ben. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Was gonna

Speaker 9: see you later soon. Goodbye.

Speaker 3: Can't wait.

Speaker 2: Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Wanna change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Stop making excuses. September is the month for you.