Catch the Wind secures $18.8M - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

ocybakenos.wordpress.com
million in a private placement financinb to help push more sales of its new wind sensortfor turbines. Manassas-based Catch the which trades on the Toronto Venture soldroughly 16.7 million shares at a pricr of Canadian $1.30 apiece in what it hopee to be its last major equity financinfg before generating enough revenue from its laser wind-sensinbg product, Vindicator, to pay for Company officials also participated in the investment round, alonfg with institutional investors, bringing its total equity fundraising to date to nearly $35 million. , Researcu Capital Corp. and Canaccord Capitalo Corp.
served as placement agents for this latesg fundraising in return for 6 perceny of the gross proceeds and additionaostock options. Spun off last year from LLC, a fibe r optics laser company that still shares the sameheadquarterd space, Catch the Wind has been developin g similar technology that senses when wind is helping reorient a turbine to capture that wind before it Most wind turbines can realign its bladees only after it feels wind, so they’re often too late to actuallyh benefit from gusts, company officialz said.
“Before, it was the horse-and-buggy approacj to measuring wind,” said Phil Rogers, who founded Optical Air Data Systemws nearly 20 years ago with his wife before leavinbg recently to serve as CEO for Catchjthe Wind. “Think about increasingb the gas mileage ofyour car,” he “You’ve already bought your car. But if I can sell you somethingf that doubles the gas mileage ofyour car, you wouldd save more money.” He estimates the Vindicator can capture 10 percent to 30 percen t more wind for turbines, which in turn helps generate more clean electricity and ultimatelyu revenue for their operators.
Catch the Wind recentlt sold its first unitto , a Canadiabn environmental monitoring equipment maker, while starting its first two-month field test with the Nebraska Publi Power District on its largesft wind farm with 36 wind turbines. The local which said it’s also talkingy to federal agencies, hopes to use that trial’s resultsw later this summer to market to other wind turbins manufacturers and wind farm Withsix full-time employees, Catcgh the Wind expects to at least doublw that count by the end of this year. The which had $5.5 million in cash and equivalentd on hand as ofMarch 31, is also consideringg whether to list itself on an Americanj exchange later this year.
“We aspire to that,” Rogers said. “I just can’ say when.”