United Airlines Reveals New Venture Arm Won't Go for Quick Returns
Skift Take
United's heft could help its new corporate venture capital unit, which will be like a barnacle on a whale. Unlike pure-play venture capital firms, United Airlines Ventures can invest for a truly long haul thanks to its strategic focus.
United Airlines announced earlier this month it was launching a corporate venture-capital fund that will invest in startups strategically relevant to the Chicago-based airline, one of largest U.S. carriers by market share. United Airlines Ventures will target startups to help it keep up-to-date on new technologies rather than to seek high returns in a strictly financial play.
To learn more, Skift spoke with Michael Leskinen, the president of United Airlines Ventures and the company's vice president of corporate development and investor relations.
United Airlines Ventures now oversees all the carrier's bets on startups. Earlier this year, the airline said it had made a $20 million investment into Archer Aviation, a company based in Palo Alto, California, that's building flying electric taxis.
Past publicly disclosed investments include Clear Secure, an identity company that United took an undisclosed stake in a decade ago that is worth less than 5 percent of Clear's equity, according to financial filings by the New York-based startup that plans to go public this year.
In 2015, United invested $30 million in Fulcrum Bioenergy, a startup looking to produce jet fuel from household waste. The airline may have added undisclosed amounts to that investment since.
In December 2020, United announced it would make a "multimillion-dollar" investment in 1PointFive, a project formed by Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Rusheen Capital that is licensing direct air capture tech from Carbon Engineering, a startup pioneering the new technology in response to climate change.
United CEO Scott Kirby disclosed in May 2020 that his team had become "a seed investor in a couple of startups" in the sustainable
