CT: State to Assist High-Tech Optical Components Start up

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Connecticut is providing $700,000 in loans to help Aperture Optical Sciences Inc. buy equipment and establish manufacturing operations in Durham. The company is a high-tech start up that produces optical components.

“Aperture Optical Sciences is the type of high-tech start up that Connecticut must foster if the state is truly to recover and rebound from the economic downturn of the last two years,” said Catherine Smith, Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). “With this financial assistance, Aperture can grow Connecticut’s optical components industry and serve an essential role in the state’s aerospace and defense supply chain.”

Aperture Optical Sciences is a newly formed subsidiary of Flemming Tinker Inc. Aperture’s principal products are silicon carbide optics, aspheric mirrors and lenses, laser optics and opto-mechanical assemblies for applications aerospace and scientific imaging. The company’s customers use optics in high energy lasers, aerospace, optical lithography and a variety of scientific research applications.

“We are delighted to embark on the expansion that this critical assistance will provide to our company. Capital equipment loans are difficult to obtain for young companies and the assistance provided by this program is helping to fill the gap,” said Flemming Tinker, president of Aperture Optical Sciences.

DECD is assisting the project with a 10-year, $350,000 loan at 4% interest to purchase and install new machinery and equipment to begin manufacturing optical components. The Connecticut Development Authority (CDA) is providing a complementary 10-year, $350,000 loan.

”CDA’s financing is a creative collaboration in a program designed for start up companies like Aperture, boosting our in-state high-tech manufacturing base,” said Marie O’Brien, President of the Connecticut Development Authority.

DECD’s financial assistance will come via the Small Business Assistance Revolving Loan Program. Under this program Connecticut-based businesses with less than 50 employees are eligible for loans and lines of credit of up to $500,000. For more information, visit www.decd.org.