The ‘Investors‘ page on the Oxonica site looks a bit bare today, after their de-listing from the AIM market yesterday. The move was billed as a cash saving measure. Presumably updating the web site less frequently is a similar tactic.
Is a Half Baked £1Bn Innovation Fund Better Than None At All?
@Lord Drayson had a quick look at my take on the new innovation fund and tweeted This article misunderstands how this fund will work. I will blog on the BIS site to spell it out. I’m looking forward to it. There is no doubt about the commitment of the Lords Mandelson and Drayson to stimulating the UK economy though science …
The UK Innovation Fund – Just As Half Baked As Most Business Plans?
I’m probably nor the only one to be underwhelmed by the UK governments new £1Bn “Innovation Fund” – it’s actually £150m but there are hopes that with private sector leverage it could swell to £1Bn by, erm, 2019! The main worry is that the UK government has made a habit in recent years of announcing things and then forgetting about …
Job Vacancy and Redundancies at Oxonica
Our old friends Oxonica are looking for a new CEO and are making a number of other redundancies as well. Having developed product offerings in all of its businesses, Oxonica is now focusing on partnering the Group’s businesses to secure profitable platforms for growth. In 2008, Oxonica’s Diagnostics business was partnered with BD and the Company is currently in partnering …
How To Save The Planet And Get Rich
There’s probably no better way to enrage the proponents of precautionary principals than proposing using geoengineering to make obscene amounts of money by working the carbon credits system. One one hand John Holdren, the chief scientific adviser to US president Barack Obama, said about geoengineering: “It’s got to be looked at . . . We don’t have the luxury of …
Zettacore Change Tack
Interesting to see Zettacore raising a $21m series C, some six years after they first started our promising to replace silicon with molecular memories, although that’s not the application that is attracting interest right now. As Nikkei Electronics reported last week – they look to have a customer for their Molecular Interface (aren’t most interfaces molecular?) technology that helps with …
Cleantech Investors Desperately Seeking The Exit
In my predictions over the last year I mentioned that Clean Tech would have a rocky time in 2009 for four reasons Renewable energy interest tends to lag oil prices by 6-12 months and with oil almost back to 2006 levels a lot of transient interest will evaporate Lot’s of clean tech companies based their business models on sustained high …
Swine Flu or a Common Cold? Our Nanotech Can Tell In Seconds
A criticism that has been levelled at nanotechnology is that after over $50 billion dollars of government funding, not much of use has emerged – yet. As someone involved on the investment side of business for a long time, finding opportunities that can be commercialised and profitable has been one of the hardest things to do. However, a lot of …
Angels vs VCs
Stephen Fleming at Academic VC has an interesting article about the diverging interests of angel investors & VCs. The basic premise is that the high returns required by venture funds drive them to take decisions which are neither in the interest of the founders nor the early stage (Angel) investors. I’ve seen this happen in a number of companies, and …
VCs Dabble, Dither & Diversify
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about how “with their core business in shambles, some venture capitalists are changing their stripes, styling themselves as investors in distressed assets and public companies.” Here’s why: Start- ups today take a median 6.6 years to go public or get sold, up from 5.4 years in 2005, according to research firm VentureSource. …