Category Archives: investment

$100M nanotechnology venture fund with Rusnano, 12BF Global Ventures, VTB Capital, and the republic of Kazakhstan*

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According to the Dec. 21, 2011 news item on Nanowerk, there’s a new US $100M venture capital fund,

A US$100m nanotechnology venture fund has been announced by joint managers VTB Capital and I2BF Global Ventures, with cornerstone backing from the Russian state nanotechnology fund RusNano and Kazyna Capital Management, the sovereign wealth fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan. These entities have committed $25m each to the new fund, with VTB Capital and I2BF expecting to raise a further $50m from external investors. The agreement was signed on December 21st 2011 in Almaty at a ceremony attended by Aset Isekeshev, Vice-Premier of Kazakhstan and Minister of Industry and New Technologies, and will soon be followed by the opening of offices in Moscow and Almaty.

…

The 10-year fund will focus on technology transfer into the two countries as well as domestic nanotech investment, while also driving further private capital inflows into the nanotech sector by leading deals for international syndication. Potential pipeline deals include desalination technologies, oil processing, diabetes treatments, semiconductor technologies and LED/OLED, while future investment themes will include energy production, including alternative energy; increasing efficiency in the petroleum and gas industry; telecommunications; biotechnology; electronics and environmental technology. Activities for the fund will be divided equally between Russia and Kazakhstan.

Here are some brief descriptions of the main players (from the news item),

Kazyna Capital Management (KCM) was established in May 2007 with the purpose of formation of the efficient Private Equity market in Kazakhstan. 100% shares of KCM are owned by ?? “Samruk-Kazyna” National well-being fund. www.kkm-kazyna.kz.

RUSNANO was established in March 2011 as an open joint-stock company through reorganization of state corporation Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies. RUSNANO’s mission is to develop the Russian nanotechnology industry through co-investment in nanotechnology projects with substantial economic potential or social benefit. The Government of the Russian Federation owns 100 percent of the shares in RUSNANO, www.rusnano.com.

VTB Capital VTB Capital, the Investment Business of VTB Group, is one of the three strategic business arms of VTB Group, along with the corporate and retail businesses. Since its foundation in 2008, VTB Capital has taken part in more than 184 Equity Capital Markets and Debt Capital Markets deals, which were instrumental in attracting more than USD 88bn worth of investments to Russia and CIS, www.vtbcapital.com.

I2BF Global Ventures is an international clean technology asset management group with a global investment mandate focused on venture capital and public equity activities. Established in 2005, I2BF has over USD 145 million in assets under management across two venture capital vehicles and a hedge fund. I2BF Global Ventures seeks out game-changing technologies, and to invest in the most innovative and competitive companies within the sector. In keeping with its worldwide focus, I2BF retains a team of technology and sector experts as well as renewable energy researchers across teams in New York, London, Moscow and Dubai, www.i2bf.com.

If I read this correctly, they currently have $US50M from RUSNANO and Kazyna Capital Management while the two venture funds are expected to raise a further $US50 from external investors, which gives them approximately $US10M per yr. over the fund’s 10 year life. They certainly have some ambitious spending plans for that $US10M annual budget. I wonder what the administration costs will be.

* Finally changed for ‘Zakhastan’ to ‘Kazkkastan’ March 20, 2015.

Bacteria, pyramids, cancer, and Sylvain Martel

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Canada’s national newspaper (as they like to bill themselves), the Globe and Mail featured Québec researcher’s (Sylvain Martel) work in a Dec. 13, 2011 article by Bertrand Marotte. From the news article,

Professor Sylvain Martel is already a world leader in the field of nano-robotics, but now he’s working to make a medical dream reality: To deliver toxic drug treatments directly to cancerous cells without damaging the body’s healthy tissue.

I have profiled Martel’s work before in an April 6 2010 posting about bacterial nanobots (amongst other subjects) and in a March 16, 2011 posting about his work with remote-controlled microcarriers.

It seems that his next project will combine the work on bacteria and microcarriers (from the Globe and Mail article),

Bolstered by his recent success in guiding micro-carriers loaded with cancer-fighting medications into a rabbit’s liver, he and his team of up to 20 researchers from several disciplines are working to transfer the method to the treatment of colorectal cancer in humans within four years.

This time around he is not using micro-carriers to deliver the drug to the tumour, but rather bacteria.

Here’s a video of the bacteria which illustrates Martel’s earlier success with ‘training’ them to build a pyramid.

The latest breakthrough reported in March 2011 (from my posting) implemented an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine,

Known for being the world’s first researcher to have guided a magnetic sphere through a living artery, Professor Martel is announcing a spectacular new breakthrough in the field of nanomedicine. Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, his team successfully guided microcarriers loaded with a dose of anti-cancer drug through the bloodstream of a living rabbit, right up to a targeted area in the liver, where the drug was successfully administered. This is a medical first that will help improve chemoembolization, a current treatment for liver cancer.

Here’s what Martel is trying to accomplish now (from the Globe and Mail article),

The MRI machine’s magnetic field is manipulated by [a] sophisticated software program that helps guide the magnetically sensitive bacteria to the tumour mass.

Attached to the bacteria is a capsule containing the cancer-fighting drug. The bacteria are tricked into swimming to an artificially created “magnetic north” at the centre of the tumour, where they will die off after 30 to 40 minutes. The micro-mules, however, have left their precious cargo: the capsule, whose envelope breaks and releases the drug.

I’m not entirely sure why the drug won’t destroy health tissue after it’s finished with the tumour but that detail is not offered in Marotte’s story which, in the last few paragraphs, switches focus from medical breakthroughs to the importance of venture capital funding for Canadian biotech research.

I wish Martel and his team great success.

IBM, Intel, and New York state

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$4.4B is quite the investment(especially considering the current international economic gyrations) and it’s the amount that IBM (International Business Machines), Intel, and three other companies announced that they are investing to “create the next generation of computer chip technology.” From the Sept. 28, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

The five companies involved are Intel, IBM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, TSMC and Samsung. New York State secured the investments in competition with countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The agreements mark an historic level of private investment in the nanotechnology sector in New York. [emphasis mine]

Research and development facilities will be located in Albany, Canandaigua, Utica, East Fishkill and Yorktown Heights. In addition, Intel separately agreed to establish its 450mm East Coast Headquarters to support the overall project management in Albany. [emphasis mine]

The money is being spent on two projects,

The investment in the state is made up of two projects. The first project, which will be led by IBM and its partners, will focus on making the next two generations of computer chips. These new chips will power advanced systems of all sizes, including, among other things computers and national security applications. This new commitment by IBM brings its total investment in chip technology in New York to more than $10 billion in the last decade.

The second project, which is a joint effort by Intel, IBM, TSMC, Global Foundries and Samsung, will focus on transforming existing 300mm technology into the new 450mm technology. [emphasis mine] The new technology will produce more than twice the number of chips processed on today’s 300 mm wafers thus lowering costs to deliver future generations of technology with greater value and lower environmental impact.

I had to read that bit about increasing the size of the chips a few times since the news items I come across usually crow about decreasing the size.

I have been intermittently following news about the nanotechnology sector in New York state for some time (scroll about 1/2 way down my January 29, 2010 posting). In 2008, IBM announced a $1.5B investment toward the nanotechnology sector in that state.

I wish there had been some description of the investments in the nanotechnology sector as opposed to the generalized statements about jobs, purchasing ‘Made in NY’ technology, and the reference to millimeter (mm) scale computer chips. As for the “450mm East Coast Headquarters,” they may want to rethink that name.

Canadians as hewers of graphite?

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Who knew large flakes could be this exciting? From the July 25, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Northern Graphite Corporation has announced that graphene has been successfully made on a test basis using large flake graphite from the Company’s Bissett Creek project in Northern Ontario. Northern’s standard 95%C, large flake graphite was evaluated as a source material for making graphene by an eminent professor in the field at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is doing research making graphene sheets larger than 30cm2 in size using the graphene oxide methodology. The tests indicated that graphene made from Northern’s jumbo flake is superior to Chinese powder and large flake graphite in terms of size, higher electrical conductivity, lower resistance and greater transparency.

Approximately 70% of production from the Bissett Creek property will be large flake (+80 mesh) and almost all of this will in fact be +48 mesh jumbo flake which is expected to attract premium pricing and be a better source material for the potential manufacture of graphene. The very high percentage of large flakes makes Bissett Creek unique compared to most graphite deposits worldwide which produce a blend of large, medium and small flakes, as well as a large percentage of low value -150 mesh flake and amorphous powder which are not suitable for graphene, Li ion batteries or other high end, high growth applications.

For anyone who’s not familiar with the excitement over graphene and its possibilities, here’s the latest from the two scientists who pioneered work in this area (from the July 24, 2011 news item on Nanowerk),

Now the research from the creators [Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov] of the material promises to accelerate that research, and potentially open up countless more electronic opportunities.

The researchers, from the universities of Manchester, Madrid and Moscow, have studied in detail the effect of interactions between electrons on the electronic properties of graphene.

They use extremely high-quality graphene devices which are prepared by suspending sheets of graphene in a vacuum.

This way most of the unwanted scattering mechanisms for electrons in graphene could be eliminated, thus enhancing the effect of electron-on-electron interaction.

This is the first effect of its kind where the interactions between electrons in graphene could be clearly seen.

The reason for such unique electronic properties is that electrons in this material are very different from those in any other metals. They mimic massless relativistic particles – such as photons.

Due to such properties graphene is sometimes called ‘CERN on a desk’ – referencing the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. This is just one of the reasons why the electronic properties are particularly exciting and often bring surprises.

Northern Graphite’s home page features a bullish few paragraphs about its prospects (excerpted from the home page),

Northern Graphite Corporation is an Ottawa-based Canadian company that recently closed a $4 million initial public offering and began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “NGC”.

Northern’s principal asset is the Bissett Creek graphite project located 100km east of North Bay, Ontario and close to major roads and rail and power lines. The Company has completed an NI 43-101 preliminary assessment report on the project and has subsequently initiated a bankable final feasibility study and commenced the environmental and mine permitting process.  Northern anticipates that it will be in a position to begin construction of the mine early in 2012, subject to positive results from the bankable final feasibility study and the availability of financing.

Graphite prices have almost tripled since 2005 due to the ongoing industrialization of China, India and other emerging economies and resultant strong demand from traditional steel and automotive markets. However, new applications such as lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells and nuclear power have the potential to create significant, incremental demand growth in the future. For example, there is 20 to 30 times more graphite than lithium in lithium-ion batteries. The use of li-ion batteries is growing rapidly in consumer electronics and this trend will continue with the increased use of hybrid and all electric vehicles.

On the plus side, this looks like there might be more jobs. As is often the case in Canada, these jobs are about extracting resources (the hewers of wood, drawers of water economy).

I did find a reference to the environment on pp. 101-2 of a technical report mainly focused on an economic assessment of the Bissett Creek property. The section on the environment concentrates on the location of a waste dump and railings. Hopefully, the geologists and engineers who run the company will have more information about environmental impacts in the not too distant future since they (from the July 25, 2011 news item on Nanowerk) are getting ready to construct facilities,

Northern Graphite Corporation holds a 100% interest in the Bissett Creek graphite project which is located 17kms from the Trans Canada highway between Ottawa and North Bay, Ontario. The Company is in the process of completing a bankable Final Feasibility Study and permitting with the objective of initiating construction, subject to the results of the study and the availability of financing, in the first part of 2012.

I gather they are looking for investors.

 

Funds raised for thermoelectric materials company, GMZ Energy

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GMZ Energy is a nanotechnology-based company that’s been spun off from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). There was an announcement yesterday, April 18, 2011, that the company has received $7M in funding in its first institutional round. From the announcement,

Newton’s [Massachusetts] GMZ Energy Inc., a maker of thermoelectric materials based on nanotechnology developed at MIT, has raised $7 million from a planned $13 million investment round, the first institutional round for the company.

While the three backers in the round were not identified in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, GMZ Energy has been backed with seed capital by West Coast venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers.

The company’s technology (from the announcement),

GMZ Energy uses it nanotechnology to produce thermoelectric material that turn waste heat into electrical power using an environmentally friendly alloy. The material optimizes cooling in refrigerators and air conditioners, generates power from heat sources such as automotive exhaust systems, and enables electricity generation from renewable sources, according to company statements.

The company website can be visited here.

I’ve included this item as it relates to business and investment in nanotechnology and I don’t cover that end of the topic often enough.

PCAST report; University of Alberta claims leadership in providing nanotech facilities for undergrad students; a securities analysis and innovation in Canada; Mar.10.10 UK debate; science songs

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Triumph! After a technical glitch or two,  I was able to watch the live stream of the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) representatives’, Maxine Savitch and Ed Penhoet, presentation to the  President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, on Friday, March 12, 2010.  The short story (and it’s the same one for every agency): please keep funding us and please sir, we’d like more. (Oliver Twist reference in that last bit)

More seriously, I was impressed by the fact that they adopted a measured approach regarding basic vs commercialization funding needs and regarding competition for leadership in nanotechnology (US vs the rest of the world). There was an acknowledgment that the NNI is ten years old and from there they launched into the need for funding to commercialize nanotechnology while maintaining their commitment to basic science research. They noted that the US is a leader in nanotechnology but its leadership is eroding as more countries in Europe and Asia particularly devote more attention and resources to nanotechnology research.

Surprisingly, they first singled out Germany as a nanotechnology leader; it’s usually (by international organizations and other jurisdictions as well as the US) China which is singled out first as a competitor because of its extraodinarily fast progress to the top three or five depending on what you’re measuring as nanotechnology research. I think this strategy worked well as it expanded the notion of competition between the US and a single country to emphasize the global aspect of the nanotechnology endeavour and the need for a range of strategies.

I had another surprise while watching the live stream when they discussed strategies for retaining students who study for advanced degrees in the US and return to their home countries on completion. There was talk of stapling a “green card” (permission to work in the US) to the graduate diploma although one member of the council hastened to suggest that they only wanted the “right” kinds of advanced degrees. Presumably the council member did not want to encourage experts with advanced degrees in medieval Italian poetry and other such frippery to remain in the US.

There was considerable concern (which led to a recommendation) about the scarcity of data on commercialization, i.e., the true value of the nanotechnology aspect of a product and its benefits.

Mention was made of risks and hazards with the recommendation that research needs to be focused on defining a path for commercialization and on developing a regulatory framework.

Nanoclast (IEEE blogger), Dexter Johnson, has also commented here on the March 12, 2010 PCAST presentation, if you want another perspective.

The folks at Edmonton’s University of Alberta are doing a little chest beating about the nanotechnology research facilities they make available for undergraduate students. From Elise Stolte’s article in the Edmonton Journal,

In a small, windowless room at the University of Alberta, a dozen undergraduate students sit in the middle of $2-million worth of new equipment sensitive enough to measure an atom, the smallest particle of matter.

It’s the first place in Canada where students not yet finished their first degree can start running real experiments on the nano scale, lab co-ordinator Ben Bathgate said.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California’s Stanford University have undergraduate labs that come close, “but they don’t have the range of equipment,” he said.

It’s fragile, state-of-the-art, and so new that one of the 18 machines still has parts in bubble wrap.

I don’t really care whether or not the equipment is better than what they have in Stanford and MIT, I’m just glad to see that an effort is being made to provide students with facilities so they can learn and participate in some exciting and cutting edge research. This is only part of the picture, Tim Harper over at TNT Log comments on a recent report (Vision for UK Research by the Council for Science and Technology) in his post titled, A Concerted Effort to Save British Science,

… there is also a need to start thinking about science in a different way. In fact we really need to look at the whole process of scientific innovation from primary education to technology funding.

This is a holistic approach to the entire endeavour and means that students won’t be left with a degree or certificate and no where to go, which leads me to the topic of innovation.

I’ve commented before on innovation in Canada and the fact that there is general agreement that established businesses don’t spend enough money on R&D (research and development). There is an eye-opening study by Mary J. Benner of The Wharton School which provides what may be some insight into the situation. From the news item on physorg.com,

The reluctance of securities analysts to recommend investment in veteran companies using new techniques to grapple with radical technological change may be harming these companies as they struggle to compete, according to a new study in the current issue of Organization Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

…

The findings suggest that management teams contemplating bold innovation and the adoption of radical technological change may be held back by conservative investment firms that reward firms that stick to their knitting by extending existing technologies.

“This may be short-sighted,” says Dr. Benner. “Existing companies may be rewarded in the short run with increased stock prices for focusing on strategies that extend the financial performance from the old technology, but they may pay later in the face of threatening technological substitutes.”

Benner’s article is behind a paywall but the news item on physorg.com does offer a good summary.

Kudos to Ms. Benner for pointing out that established companies don’t seem to get much support when they want to embrace new technologies. Benner’s discussion about Polaroid and Kodak is quite salutary. (Note: I once worked for Creo Products, computer-to-plate technology, which was eventually acquired by Kodak, a company which, last I heard, is now in serious financial trouble.) This study certainly provides a basis for better understanding why Canadian companies aren’t inclined to innovate much.

The Brits enjoyed their third and final for this series of UK Cross-Party Science Policy Debate on Tuesday, March 9, 2010. The webcast which was live streamed from the House of Commons is available here.  At 2.5 hours I haven’t found the time to listen past the first few minutes. Dave Bruggeman, Pasco Phronesis, does provide some commentary from his perspective as a US science policy analyst.

One final bit for today, the Pasco Phronesis blog provides some videos of science songs from the Hear Comes Science album by They Might Be Giants.

Russia invests in Canadian nanotechnology? and flying microbots

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There’s a delegation from RUSNANO (Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies) making the rounds of Canadian nanotechnology firms in the hopes of finding some worthy investments. Officials from the company have also traveled to Finland, the US, Germany, Israel, and elsewhere as they search for companies to invest in. From the Nanowerk news article,

With $5 billion U.S. to work with, RUSNANO is one of the largest technology capital funds on the planet.

The company’s minimum investment will be $10M and they have an investment horizon of 10 years, contrasting strongly with private sector venture funds which often demand a faster return.

I gather this is a government funding agency since it has a  public policy focus,

The public policy imperative behind RUSNANO, which is only a year old, is to help Russia quickly build nano-production capacity to catch up to other powers, notably Japan and the United States, that have developed capacity in this area. “We lost a bit when our scientists when we were engaged in resolving our political problems and now we have to catch up rapidly,” said [Alexander] Losyukov [senior RUSNANO official].

Compare the $10M minimum investment from a $5B fund with Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology’s $20M annual budget, which is partly funded by the federal government. I know the federal government makes other investments but it all seems rather piecemeal when compared to other countries’ more unified and financially substantive approach to nanotechnology research and innovation.

In other news, a flying microbot has been created at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). It’s not precisely nano but it is pretty interesting. From Science Daily,

The microrobot defies the force of gravity by flying or levitating, powered by a magnetic field. It moves around and dexterously manipulates objects with magnets attached to microgrippers, remotely controlled by a laser-focusing beam.

There are more details here.