A Joby Aviation electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Joby Aviation Inc. is working toward an agreement to sell as many as 200 of its air taxis to a major Saudi Arabian investor in a deal potentially worth as much as $1 billion.

Joby and Abdul Latif Jameel, a Jeddah-based group named after its late founder and run today by his family, have signed a memorandum of understanding “to explore opportunities to establish a distribution agreement in Saudi Arabia for Joby’s electric aircraft,” according to a joint statement June 3.

That’s a first step ahead of a possible expansion throughout the Middle East, they said. No time frame was provided for when the first aircraft would be delivered or over what time period the transaction would span.

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The prospective deal is a “valuable first step as we look to build the business in Saudi Arabia,” Joby CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Wall Street Week that will air at a later date. “We think that, over time, the market in Saudi is substantially larger than that. But this is the first chunk.”

Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Joby is among a handful of companies developing eVTOL aircraft — electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles — that plan to fly customers on short commuter journeys via battery-powered air taxis. Joby said recently that it aims to start commercial services in Dubai by early 2026, after having previously targeted the end of this year.

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Certification for flight operations by the Federal Aviation Administration and regulators in other countries is still pending.

Abdul Latif Jameel has long-standing ties with Toyota Motor Corp. as a distributor of its vehicles in the Middle East. Both were early investors in Joby, in which Toyota recently became the top shareholder.