Monday, August 1, 2011

Aerosat adds $800K to coffers with new funding

By Rodney H. Brown

New Hampshire firm Aerosat Corp., which makes broadband antennas for the aviation industry, has taken in $800,000 of a planned $1 million funding made up of equity, debt and options, according to federal documents.

Today’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission do not name the pair of backers in the latest funding round. Nearly the entire board of directors is listed as related persons in the filing however, including Mark Morrissette, managing director of North Atlantic Capital, and Leslie B. Daniels, managing partner of CAI Managers & Co. Also listed in the filing are founder and CEO Michael Barrett, vice president of business development William McNary and vice president of finance D. Grayson Allen.

In May of 2008, Aerosat took in $14 million in funding and leased a new facility in Nashua, N.H., with 54,000 square feet of space, significantly greater than the 12,000 square feet it had at the time. Backers in that round included PAR Capital Management of Boston, along with existing investors CAI, a private equity firm with offices in Canada and New York, and AeroEquity Inc., a Georgia-based private investment firm.

Amherst, N.H.-based Aerosat makes a broadband antenna system that enables aircraft to connect to the Internet while in flight. Founded in 1997, AeroSat received its initial seed investment from UST Capital Corp. and later raised a total of $10 million over three rounds from a syndicate of investors that also included Citizens Capital, Next Level III Investments LLC, Black Bear Investments LLC and North Atlantic.