Cathie Wood’s ARK Loads Up on Archer and Joby as Air-Taxi Bets Grow

ARK Invest bought 1.16 million Archer Aviation shares and 434,012 Joby Aviation shares, investing $6.5 million in a single session, Stocktwits reported October 27. The buys split $4.5 million into Archer and $2 million into Joby, spread across the ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF (ARKQ) and the ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF (ARKX).

The breakdown shows conviction weighted toward Archer: 781,854 Archer shares into ARKQ and 379,750 into ARKX, totaling 1,161,604 shares, against 292,119 Joby shares via ARKQ and 141,893 via ARKX. Archer shares edged up 0.3% overnight ahead of Tuesday, while Joby inched 0.2% lower — small moves for a $6.5 million vote of confidence, but the direction of institutional money is the signal, not the day’s price.

The timing lines up with the certification calendar. Archer plans air-taxi networks in Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston, and completed piloted demonstration flights in the San Francisco Bay Area this month; Joby is advancing real-world flights through the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and flew piloted flights in North Texas in September, with Florida flights due in November. ARK’s bet is that military logistics contracts and FAA milestones are pushing eVTOL from demonstration toward commercialization — a bet that still needs a type certificate to pay off.