Catch the Wind secures $18.8M - Business First of Buffalo:

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million in a private placement financing to help push more saless of its new wind sensorfor turbines. Manassas-basef Catch the Wind, which trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange, sold roughly 16.7 million shares at a price ofCanadiahn $1.30 apiece in what it hopes to be its last majotr equity financing before generating enough revenue from its laser wind-sensingg product, Vindicator, to pay for operations. Company officials also participatedx in theinvestment round, along with institutionak investors, bringing its total equity fundraising to date to nearlyy $35 million. , Research Capital and CanaccordCapital Corp.
served as placement agents for this latesr fundraising in return for 6 perceny of the gross proceedas and additionalstock options. Spun off last year from LLC, a fibedr optics laser company that still sharesa the sameheadquarters space, Catch the Wind has been developinh similar technology that senses when wind is helping reorient a turbine to capture that wind beforew it passes. Most wind turbines can realign its bladews only after it feels so they’re often too late to actuallh benefit from gusts, company officials said.
“Before, it was the horse-and-buggt approach to measuring wind,” said Phil Rogers, who foundedd Optical Air Data Systems nearly 20 years ago with his wife beforee leaving recently to serve as CEO for Catchthe “Think about increasing the gas mileagde of your car,” he said. “You’ve already bought your car. But if I can sell you something that doublexs the gas mileage ofyour car, you would save more He estimates the Vindicator can capture 10 percentf to 30 percent more wind for which in turn helps generatre more clean electricity and ultimately revenue for their Catch the Wind recently sold its first unit to , a Canadianj environmental monitoring equipment maker, while starting its firsr two-month field test with the Nebrask Public Power District on its largesg wind farm with 36 wind The local company, which said it’sd also talking to federal agencies, hopesx to use that trial’s results later this summer to market to othef w ind turbine manufacturers and wind farm operators.
With six full-timr employees, Catch the Wind expects to at least double that coungt by the end ofthis year. The which had $5.5 million in cash and equivalentse on hand as ofMarch 31, is also considering whetheer to list itself on an American exchangee later this year. “We aspire to Rogers said. “I just can’t say