Carbon Nanoprobes Inc became the latest ‘nano’ company to file for bankruptcy, despite raising $4m. As often happens, the company had decent products and good management, but failed to fulfil its fund raising schedule. Carbon Nanoprobes Inc isn’t alone, and there is a growing pool of commercial nanotech companies in similar straits with IP and know-how available for anyone with …
Beware The Counterfeit Investors
After a few years of being on the ‘funder’ side of the desk, I’ve vaulted across to start a new technology venture, and to begin the least pleasant part of entrepreneurship – fund raising! (Feel free to contact me once you have read what follows). There are plenty of people out there who will tell you how to make the …
The Death of UK Nanotech Part 2
Today’s announcement by the UK Science Minister David Willets that it is “most unlikely” that the UKs 24 nanotech centres would still be open in 18 months comes as no surprise to anyone who has visited them. I was lucky to have been involved in the set up of several of the centres, and while there is some great work …
If We Build It They Will Come, But Not To Alaska
The University of Alaska Fairbanks closed its nanotechnology office on Wednesday, which neatly illustrates the problem of setting up a centre without giving much though to its purpose. Even those involved in the project didn’t seem to have much idea what they were doing and even what nanotechnology was… But nanotechnology was a tough field to break into, especially since Outside …
A Concerted Effort To Save British Science
The past week has seen some strong and effective lobbying from the scientific community, naturally worried about some rather dim politician seeing the science budget as being available to plunder, with the next government having to deal with any consequences. It’s therefore good to see various former science ministers, and the Royal Society making high profile interventions and spelling out …
All I Want For Christmas Is A Return On My Investment
An early Christmas present? A late Eid or Diwali one? Our latest white paper looks at investing in emerging technologies from a variety of perspectives. At Cientifica we have been working with emerging technologies for fifteen years, whether developing field emission displays in the mid 90’s, or advising governments, companies and the World Economic Forum in recent years. Over this …
Long Term Prosperity is an an Ozymandian Dream Without Technology
The recent news about the debt problems in Dubai contrast with the glitzy no expense spared hotels and conference centres where I spent last weekend with the World Economic Forum, but probably do more to highlight the importance of a diverse technology enabled economy than any amount of lobbying we could do. While Dubai has led the way for the …
Scant Returns For Nanotech Domain Squatters?
Within weeks of nanotechnology becoming hot news, most of the nanotech related top level domains had been snapped in the expectation that a trillion dollar industry would emerge faster than you could say dot.com. Bored with waiting for a pay off, many are now up for grabs. The folks at nanovip.com are unloading their list of hopefuls after failing to …
Why Government Nanotechnology Policy is Ineffective
Browsing through various Twitter feeds this morning a couple of seemingly unrelated items caught my attention. The first was that the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was unable or unwilling to name his favourite biscuit, despite the questions being posed twelve times, thus exposing himself to understandable ridicule. His handlers later clarified the situation once they had seen this mornings …
A Tale of Two Quantum Dots
With a heavy heart I predicted a few high profile nanotechnology failures this year, and Evident Technologies are the latest to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In common with Oxonica, Evident found themselves in a patent infringement fight with someone with deeper pockets then them, in this case Life Technologies (formerly Invitrogen) who got into the business by acquiring …