Meet the innovators electrifying boats, securing skies, and reinventing logistics, aerospace, and infrastructure.
By Alan Ohnsman, Angelica DeLeon and Jeremy Bogaisky
When Jonathan Lord, 29, first set out to electrify the marine industry, he was just a college student with a suitcase-sized prototype and a bold idea: to create electric motors that could replace noisy, polluting gas engines typically on boats. He launched Flux Marine, an electric motor maker, in 2018 to solve the issue. The cofounders’ vision garnered significant support from those who agreed that the maritime industry was ripe for disruption. Today he’s backed by $30 million in funding from investors like Ocean Zero and Collide Capital. And it was a win-win for those who shipped off investor checks: “A lot of our early investors were also our customers,” he told Forbes.
Lord has since spent a decade turning that idea into a full-scale operation, alongside over-30 cofounders Benjamin Sorkin and Daylin Frantin. Today, his team designs and manufactures electric motors, batteries, and control systems for outboard boats and serves customers across the United States—from private sailors on small lakes to fleets in the British Virgin Islands. “The marine industry is a huge contributor to global warming,” Lord says. “We wanted to be the catalyst to build technology from the ground up, specifically for marine electrification.”
Now based in Rhode Island, Flux Marine employs nearly 50 employees and is expanding its footprint across marinas nationwide.
From electrifying marine propulsion systems to reinventing the U.S. aerospace supply chain, the founders on the 2026 30 Under 30 Transportation & Aerospace list are tackling the highest-stakes challenges in mobility, defense, and space. Collectively, they’ve raised more than $100 million in funding, landed government and enterprise contracts, and most importantly, shifted entire industries toward cleaner, safer, and more resilient transportation systems.
On land, transportation infrastructure is long overdue for modernization. That’s where Mach9 founders Alexander Baikovitz, 27, Zachary Sussman, 27, Haowen Shi, 28, and Michael Mong, 28, come in. Their company uses high-speed lidar (a technology that uses lasers to measure the distance between objects or surfaces) and AI to create detailed 3D models of roads, bridges, and transit corridors. With $15 million raised, Mach9 is quickly becoming an essential tool for transportation planners and civil engineers working to upgrade America’s infrastructure.
In the air, Aaron Guo, 22, and Brennan Lieu, 22, cofounders of Hybron, have built a manufacturing process that produces flight-grade aerospace parts–such as their one of a kind composite compressor blade–at up to five times lower cost than traditional machining. Hybron has secured more than $100 million in binding pre-orders. Airspace is also being reimagined by Guardian RF, cofounded by Lucas Raskin, 22, John Andrzejewski, 22 and Eli Kerstein, 24. Their lightweight RF-based (radiofrequency) sensors detect unauthorized drones near airports, transportation hubs, and restricted airspace. The technology is already deployed across U.S. airports, including 33 public airports in Massachusetts and Vandenberg Space Force Base, and has even been used in active conflict zones, including Ukraine, where low-cost drone threats have reshaped modern warfare. With $2.3 million raised, Guardian RF represents a fast-growing sector at the intersection of mobility and national security.
Salient Motion, led by 27-year-old founder Vishaal Mali, develops robotic systems that help manufacture complex aircraft parts. This technology helps stabilize a supply chain critical to global transportation by making essential parts faster to design and build. Backed by $16 million from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors, Salient Motion will see its components debut on the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 this year.
Despite rocket science being a complicated industry, space mobility—from how satellites move to how they communicate and operate—continues to attract young talent. Onkar Singh, 20, founder of Apolink, is building a real-time inter-satellite data relay system that could eliminate communication blackouts in orbit. With $4.3 million raised, the company aims to create a continuous connectivity layer in space, a breakthrough that would support everything from satellite navigation to Earth observation systems used in disaster response and aviation monitoring. The defense side of aerospace is evolving, too: Naweed Tahmas, 29, founder of Aeon, is building a more lightweight and AI-enabled missile system (named Zeus) equipped to detect targets and deliver a precise first strike. The startup has raised $18.6 million and secured Department of Defense contracts. While its applications are military, the underlying advancements represent significant innovations in small-form aerospace engineering.
Whether they’re building cleaner propulsion systems, mapping the cities of the future, securing national airspace, or enabling communication between satellites, these founders represent the new frontier of how the world moves.
To determine this year’s class, Forbes journalists and a panel of industry-defining leaders across transportation and aerospace reviewed thousands of applications for this year’s list. The 2026 judging panel included Aisha Evans, CEO of Zoox; Paul Kwan, Managing Director at General Catalyst; Marianne Wu, Partner at Congruent Ventures; and Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril. Among this year’s honorees, 16% are female, 42% identify as first-generation, and 69% are founders.
Eligibility required that nominees be 29 or younger as of December 31, 2025, and that they had not been featured on any prior Forbes 30 Under 30 U.S., Europe or Asia lists.
This year’s list was edited by Alan Ohnsman, Jeremy Bogaisky & Angelica DeLeon. For complete 2026 30 Under 30 Transportation & Aerospace list, click here, and for full 2026 30 Under 30 coverage, click here.