Story ID: 
AFV Adds Another Company to Aviation Stable
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: AFV Partners' purchase of Seattle Avionics signals a new level of competition in the aviation chart data market. 
Word Count: 329
AFV Partners, which purchased Aircraft Performance Group in January and RocketRoute in March, acquired another software-based aviation company, Seattle Avionics, on September 3. The purchase of Seattle Avionics builds another leg onto AFV’s portfolio of flight-planning, performance analysis, and now aviation charting and electronic flight bag (EFB) application markets.

Seattle Avionics pioneered the early development of pilot flight applications after its founding in 2002 and is the data provider for avionics and portable device updates through its ChartData service. ChartData includes about 5,000 Seattle Avionics-produced airport georeferenced diagrams in addition to 700 FAA diagrams and georeferenced FAA VFR and IFR maps, charts, and arrival, departure, and approach procedures. Seattle Avionics also developed the FlyQ iPad EFB app with features such as augmented reality views, Slingshot wireless ChartData transfer to installed avionics, 3D synthetic vision, and 4D predictive weather map.

Company founders John Rutter and Steve Podradchik have taken leadership roles in the aviation division of AFV Partners. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

There has long been little competition in the aviation data market, and AFV Partners founder, chairman, and CEO Tony Aquila commented that the Seattle Avionics acquisition will change that picture. 

“We are impressed with what Steve and John have built over the past years,” he said, “and making them a part of our aviation vertical will significantly accelerate our offering for the general aviation and data market. We will cross-leverage our platform technologies within our aviation vertical to deliver unprecedented value to the ecosystem while adding critical chart and navigation data capabilities [and] gaining access to a $1 billion chart data market.”

“I have been impressed with the entire AFV Partners team,” said Rutter, president of Seattle Avionics, “especially their products, vision for the space, and their focus on accelerating our ChartData business. We’re passionate about bringing our ChartData to even more OEMs globally and enhancing both the depth and breadth of products we offer.”