This follows receipt of a GBP1.425 million (approximately $2.6 million) rebate from the UK tax authority for a research and development tax claim made by the company’s wholly owned UK subsidiary for last financial year.
Releasing its December quarter report, SAS said it completed its non-renounceable entitlement offer during the quarter, raising gross proceeds of approximately $1.6 million.
SAS said this gave it important working capital. As at the end of December 2019, SAS had a cash balance of $1.79 million.
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The company remains in voluntary suspension from trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and expects the suspension to end once the capital raising is completed, two Australian resident directors are appointed and all ASX requirements are satisfied.
“In these challenging times for Sky and Space Global, we are pleased to have completed a quarter of activity that saw us through our entitlement issue and receive the R&D tax rebate,” said SAS chief executive officer Meir Moalem.
“This has given the company important working capital to fund our near-term objectives as we continue to advance towards funding and commercialisation.
“We would like to thank shareholders for their continued support, some of whom have been with us since we first listed in 2016. We are excited by the pipeline of commercial opportunities and potential customers that await us in the year ahead.”
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SAS incorporated in the UK in 2015 and listed on the ASX in May 2016.
The company is based in Perth and is well advanced in plans for what it calls the Pearls constellation of as many as 200 nanosatellites in equatorial orbit, providing low-cost communications, data and internet services for markets in Africa, South America and Asia.
SAS is proposing an additional satellite constellation, allowing full global coverage, including Australia, Russia, China, South Africa, Argentina and Canada. The company has more than 50 agreements in place for use of its services.
In 2017, SAS Global launched three prototype satellites on an Indian rocket to test its technology. It plans to launch their first batch of nanosatellites in first quarter 2021, signalling the start of revenue generation.
SAS said that during the quarter, it had achieved two important technical milestones.
After securing a memorandum of understanding with internet of things (IoT) enterprise technology firm hereO in third quarter last year, SAS had integrated hereO’s Core IoT platform into the company’s existing 3 Diamonds nanosatellite narrow-band communication network.
That would ensure that the SAS proprietary network was both backwards compatible with millions of existing IoT devices and wireless WAN technologies, as well as able to seamlessly handle future IoT developments.
SAS had also started work on developing the SASNet Protocol, a proprietary communication protocol that ensures secure connectivity between end-user remote devices and their cloud application servers.
“These have been important technological milestones for the company as it continues to bolster its research and development capabilities and proceed towards the commercial delivery of its nanosatellite program,” SAS said.
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