BOSTON, MA, June 30, 2025 – At the 2025 Paris Air Show, Flexcompute announced that Joby Aviation will adopt its CFD solver, Flow360, to accelerate the development of Joby’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The collaboration focuses on addressing aerodynamic challenges, including noise reduction – one of the key barriers to scaling eVTOL operations in urban environments. This marks a noteworthy step in applying cloud-based simulation to accelerate aircraft design, testing, and certification.
This partnership will enable Joby Aviation to shorten design cycles and perform aerodynamic and aeroacoustics’ analyses using Flow360’s workflow. With this expansion, Joby Aviation will expand Flow360 for multiphysics analysis to design future aircrafts for urban air mobility.
“Flow360 is reshaping how we think about the depth of analysis throughout the design process. With faster execution, seamless integration, reliable accuracy, and scalable computing power, we can spend less time managing tools and more time solving the real physics challenges,” said Gregor Veble Mikić, chief aerodynamicist at Joby Aviation.
Flow360, optimized for modern GPUs, reduces simulation runtimes – from durations that previously required days or weeks to hours or minutes. This improvement supports the design process by enabling faster analysis of design changes and the associated aerodynamic behavior.
Key benefits for Joby Aviation include:
- Early Concept Design: Iterate with confidence, exploring ideas faster.
- Aero Database Development: Build aerodynamic models across flight envelopes to reduce design cycle iterations
- Aeroacoustics: Simulate propeller acoustics in hours.
- New capabilities: Explore multiphysics capabilities beyond aerodynamics, enabling a range of integrated simulations
Flexcompute President Vera Yang added: “At Flexcompute, we’re proud to support that leadership. With Flow360, we enable Joby to run high-fidelity simulations to accelerate the optimization of aerodynamics and acoustics across a wide flight envelope. This partnership reflects our shared belief: that faster, quieter, and safer urban air mobility isn’t a distant future, it’s within reach.”
Source: Flexcompute
About Flexcompute
Flexcompute is a technology company based in Madison, Wisconsin, founded in 2015 by engineers from MIT and Stanford. The company develops high-performance, cloud-native simulation software for industries including aerospace, automotive, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and renewable energy. Its key products – Flow360, Tidy3D, and PhotonForge – are designed for computational fluid dynamics (CFD), electromagnetics, and photonics simulations. These tools use GPU acceleration and AI-assisted physics modeling to enable faster simulation speeds compared to traditional methods, while maintaining accuracy. Flexcompute’s solutions aim to support hardware design and engineering workflows by reducing simulation time and improving scalability. The company employs around 23 people and has raised approximately $80.7 million in funding, including a $53 million Series C round in 2024. Its estimated annual revenue is around $14.1 million. Flexcompute focuses on providing efficient simulation capabilities to help organizations accelerate product development in complex engineering environments.
About Joby Aviation
Joby Aviation is an aerospace company headquartered in Santa Cruz, CA, founded in 2009. The company develops electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft designed for urban air mobility and regional transportation. Its aircraft carries one pilot and up to four passengers, with a maximum speed of 200 mph and a range of approximately 150 miles per charge. Joby serves the emerging aerial ridesharing and advanced air mobility sectors, aiming to offer sustainable alternatives to ground transportation in congested urban areas. The company has partnerships with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense and receives investment from organizations including Toyota and Delta Air Lines. Joby reported $1.03 million in revenue in 2023, primarily from government-related operations, and $1.36 million in 2024 as it continues pre-commercial development and certification efforts. The company employs over 2,000 people and plans to launch commercial passenger services by 2025, pending regulatory approvals.