Archer Aviation Inc ACHR shares are trading lower Tuesday after the company announced new financing and reported preliminary results for the fourth quarter.

What Happened: Archer announced Tuesday that it raised $301.75 million from institutional investors led by funds from BlackRock after offering 35.5 million shares of common stock for $8.50 per share in a registered direct offering.

The financing brings Archer’s total liquidity position up to approximately $1 billion. The company plans to use the financing to accelerate the development of its hybrid aircraft platform for the defense market.

“I believe the opportunity for advanced vertical lift aircraft across defense appears to be substantially larger than I originally expected. As a result, we are raising additional capital to help us invest in critical capabilities like composites and batteries to help enable us to capture this opportunity and more,” said Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer.

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Archer also provided certain preliminary results for the fourth quarter. The company said it expects to report operating expenses of $120 million to $140 million and adjusted operating expenses of $95 million to $110 million.

Archer also confirmed that it does not expect total adjusted operating expenses in the first quarter of 2025 to materially increase compared to the fourth quarter.

Archer is due to report fourth-quarter results later this month. Analysts expect the company to report a loss of 27 cents per share and revenue of $3 million, according to estimates from Benzinga Pro.

ACHR Price Action: Archer shares were down 4.85% at $9.70 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Archer.