Bradley Stoke aviation firm’s ?9m investment

Vistair, an aviation safety software specialist based in Bradley Stoke, has secured a £9m investment from Synova Capital to meet its growth ambitions overseas.

Its cloud-hosted products can be used on tablets to replace multiple copies of paper manuals currently required on flight decks. They provide digital information and data for pilots and crews, from flight manuals to safety reporting and quality measurement. British Airways, Delta, easyJet, Air Asia and Emirates are already customers, support by operations in Glasgow, Manchester, London and Dubai

The company won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise earlier this year in recognition of its burgeoning international sales.

CEO Ian Herbert founded the company in the early 1990s, seeing a gap for online technical manuals and document handling.

Ian said: “For a long time now we’ve had investors knocking on the door interested in putting money into our business but, until now, we’ve always resisted. However, we find ourselves at a point in the company’s development where, in order to truly grow and expand, we required a significant cash injection.

“What makes us such an attractive investment proposition is the fact we have developed our own technology which is truly leading edge, world class and simply head and shoulders above the competition. In short it was time to turn that knowledge and assets into a force to take more market share globally.”

Synova partner Alex Bowden, who has joined Vistair’s board, said: “Vistair has developed an exceptional suite of software solutions for the airline industry, which significantly improve efficiency and compliance for our customers.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Ian and his highly skilled team as the business strives to deliver an accelerated international growth plan buoyed by increased demand within the aviation industry for technology-led products.”

“Having built a relationship over the past few years I am delighted to finally be partnering with Synova as our business embarks on the next chapter of our international growth story,” said Ian. “Synova’s experience of supporting and enabling some of Britain’s fastest-growing businesses to replicate their local success in international markets makes them the ideal partner for me and my team. The investment is about a lot more than simply putting cash into the business. Our investors are experts in building market share and growing businesses, so the investment funding is already being put to use strengthening and developing our implementation and sales teams and functions, creating greater presence in overseas markets and transforming Vistair into a truly global and internationally-recognised brand.

“Our investors also open channels of communications with their extensive contacts in markets with huge potential to grow our market share, such as North American where we’ve only really scratched the surface of what can be achieved.”

Synova invests in UK growth opportunities with a particular focus on companies valued at between £10m and £50m in sectors spanning business services, financial services, technology, consumer and healthcare and education.

 Read about Airbus’ funding boost.