Three engineers, fresh out of graduate school at Georgia Tech, sat down with a map of the United States and asked a simple question: where can we actually build this? Not pitch it. Not prototype it halfway. Not talk about it. Build it.

They didn’t have ties to Hampton Roads. No hometown connection. No built-in network. No obvious reason to build in the 757. And yet, they chose it.

“We didn’t have any personal connection to this area,” said Pranav Krishnamurthy, CTO of Tidal Flight. “We looked at a map of the U.S. and chose this spot.”

That decision is now playing out in real time. Tidal Flight, the hybrid-electric seaplane startup founded by those three engineers, is expanding its footprint in Chesapeake with a $538,000 investment, leasing 13,000 square feet of hangar space at Chesapeake Regional Airport and adding new jobs. The company, incubated through the REaKTOR program, is now moving deeper into research, development, and testing of its full-scale aircraft systems.

The choice of Hampton Roads wasn’t accidental. It was practical. Building a seaplane immediately narrows where you can operate. You need consistent access to water, not just one type, but a range of environments that reflect real-world conditions.

“You have everything from the James River to the Chesapeake Bay to open ocean,” Krishnamurthy said. “So a wide variety of the type of water we have.”

But water alone doesn’t solve the problem. The aircraft itself requires a specific blend of expertise that isn’t easy to find in one place.

“We’re building a seaplane, so we need naval plus aerospace engineering talent,” he said. “You have NASA Langley, plus all the shipbuilding here. It’s kind of the perfect combination.”

That overlap is what makes the region work. The talent, the infrastructure, and the surrounding industries all reinforce what Tidal Flight is trying to build.

“And finally, we’re close to both DoD assets and Washington, D.C., for interacting with the FAA and the regulatory folks,” he added.

In other markets, that combination would be fragmented. Here, it’s concentrated.

That’s also shaped how the company has grown. In larger startup hubs, early-stage companies can easily get lost in the noise. In Hampton Roads, Tidal Flight has been able to stand out, build relationships, and gain traction more quickly.

“I think if we went to San Francisco or somewhere else, there are thousands of startups,” Krishnamurthy said. “It’s much harder to differentiate yourself. It’s much harder to make your name known.”

That difference showed up almost immediately. “When we first started the company, it was just the three of us,” he said. “We gave ourselves basically six months to get our first check.” They didn’t need that long. “One week into moving here, we actually got our first angel check.”

That early momentum has carried forward into facility expansion, hiring, and partnerships with operators who will eventually bring these aircraft into service.

The idea behind what they’re building isn’t new, it’s actually rooted in the earliest days of aviation. “A lot of aviation started with seaplanes,” Krishnamurthy said. “If you flew commercial before 1950, you were probably flying on a seaplane.” As airport infrastructure expanded, that changed. Runways replaced waterways, and seaplanes became less common.

Now, the constraints are shifting again. Airports are crowded. Expansion is expensive. Building new runways requires land, time, and significant resources. At the same time, technology is changing what’s possible.

With composite airframes and hybrid-electric propulsion, Tidal Flight’s Polaris aircraft is designed to carry nine to twelve passengers across 100 to 500 miles while reducing fuel consumption, lowering operating costs, cutting noise, and addressing corrosion challenges that historically made seaplanes expensive to maintain.

“We’re able to bring seaplanes back on par with land planes,” Krishnamurthy said.

That opens up a different way of thinking about travel. “It’s really eye-opening once you start thinking about it,” he said. “You can go down to a pier, a dock, any waterway, and now you have the flexibility to move from there to any other waterway.” Instead of relying entirely on traditional airport infrastructure, routes can be built around waterways, creating more flexible access points for regional travel.

The company’s expansion in Chesapeake marks a shift from concept toward execution. With dedicated hangar space and a growing team, Tidal Flight is moving further into testing and development of full-scale systems. Certification is targeted for around 2030, with entry into service expected shortly after, a timeline that reflects both the complexity of aviation and the rigor required to meet safety standards.

What started as a decision made around a map is now something far more concrete, a company with real infrastructure, real investment, and a clear path toward putting aircraft in the air.

They’re building the next unicorn. And it likely prefers to take off from water.