Is Archer Aviation a Millionaire Maker?

I can't tell you how many sci-fi movies I watched as a kid (a lot), but I can tell you that they sure had me convinced I would have my own flying car by now. That may still be far off, but an exciting crop of aviation start-ups are working to get us pretty close with their electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

One of the most dynamic entrants, Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR), has seen its share price more than double in the past six weeks after a string of major announcements. There's a lot of buzz around the company, so is it a millionaire maker?

This is still early days, but Archer looks ready for takeoff

Founded in 2018, the company is still pre-revenue. That's not surprising. It is developing new technology and innovating a new industry. This takes time with any industry but add in the incredibly strict regulatory environment of aviation, and you can see why it's still laying the groundwork.

That being said, this could change very soon. The company is entering its commercialization phase, CEO Adam Goldstein says, as it nears completion of its factory in Georgia and prepares to begin shipping aircraft within the next year. The company's "indicative" order book (read: "not binding") has already reached $6 billion.

It's a pivotal moment, and the next year will reveal a lot about the company's ability to execute when it counts. Good thing it has some key partners, like automaker Stellantis and United Airlines, that can help the smaller company.

Archer has passed a key milestone

One of the most important hurdles it has to overcome is approval by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The regulatory agency has an extremely high standard for what it will allow in the air. Archer's ability to meet these standards and do so on time and on budget is the key to its success.

This summer, it received a Part 135 certification from the FAA, a step crucial for it to eventually gain approval for full commercial operations. It's currently one of only two eVTOL companies with that key certification, so it is clearly one of the leaders in the field. And if things continue as they have, full FAA clearance could be just around the corner.

The question at hand

Let's say to be considered a millionaire maker, Archer would have to be able to turn $10,000 into $1,000,000 in a decade. Also, we can't forget inflation. As we're all too aware of these days, the value of money degrades over time. Remember that $1 million today will be worth less than $1 million in 2035. So, if we account for an average of 3% inflation each year, our target is actually $1.34 million, a 13,400% return.

Since Archer is pre-revenue, we'll have to use its market capitalization as a guide, to see if that kind of growth is possible. To deliver a 13,400% return, Archer's market capitalization would have to grow from today's $3 billion to $402 billion. That seems potentially possible -- plenty of companies are much larger than that already. Let's look a little further, though.

If you take a company's market capitalization and divide it by its yearly revenue, you arrive at its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio -- a pretty common metric used to value a company. Businesses in different industries tend to carry different ratios; a food wholesaler is going to have a much lower P/S ratio than a software company.

So, what kind of P/S multiple should we use in our scenario? Let's be extremely generous and say Archer carries the same P/S multiple as Tesla, or 15. That means that Archer would need yearly revenue of $26.8 billion to reach a market cap of $402 billion.

That may be possible, but is it likely? Based on some recent market projections from research firms, the global air taxi market might reach as high as $40 billion by 2035. So, in order to meet our standard, Archer would have to capture well over half of the entire global market. I'm not sure how likely that is.

Yes, there are other revenue sources -- the company just announced a new defense initiative -- but it still seems like a stretch. Tesla's P/S multiple of 15 is not the norm by any means; a more reasonable (if still generous) P/S multiple might be 5, which means Archer would have to have sales twice that of the entire global market.

There are a whole lot of assumptions made here, and no one knows what the situation will look like in 10 years. But I am willing to say Archer Aviation is not a millionaire maker by our definition. That being said, it is a company with enormous potential, and if you are an investor with a high risk tolerance, it could be a solid pick.

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Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.