Altaeros raise $7 million in new funding

Yesterday evening Altaeros Energies, a Somerville-based wind power company announced that it has raised $7 million in new funding.
The new funding comes from Japan-based telecommunications company SoftBank, a telecommunications giant which is the parent company of Sprint. SoftBank also owns the largest stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Altaeros, which was founded in 2010 at MIT, used high altitude winds to create low-cost power.

Altaeros hopes to use the funding to continue to develop and commercialize its Buoyant Airborne Turbine technology. BAT technology uses aerospace tech to lift wind turbines to heights where they can collect high altitude winds that can generate twice as much energy as tower-mounted turbines.

Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of SoftBank said in a statement that Altaeros’s technology is “a new and promising renewable energy solution for remote islands and locations in Japan and the Asia‐Pacific region.” SoftBank also made news earlier this week for its $250 million investment in GrabTaxi, an Uber competitor.