Jan. 16, 2003 — While some small tech companies are working to commercialize university laboratory findings, others are thriving off the research itself.
Case in point is Veeco Instruments Inc., which has staked its claim on nanotech research through domination of the atomic force microscope (AFM) market. Other companies, such as Arryx Inc. and Quantum Dot Corp., are leveraging the quest to understand how nanoparticles can be manipulated to benefit research as well as their own bottom lines.
“We definitely get daily calls,” said Lewis Gruber, Arryx’s president and chief executive. “They’re from people looking to use our technology to solve some problem or even going to manufacturing processes.”
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Chicago-based Arryx, which recently completed a $2.1 million third round of funding, develops tools primarily for its own research and products, but the company is transferring its technology to additional areas, products and partners. Gruber said development of the company’s BioRyx 200, which provides a 3-D look at tiny objects, has led to other opportunities in small tech.
“That same road (of BioRyx 200) is leading down to processing nanotech components and chemicals,” Gruber said.
Gruber said that because nanotech is not a settled field, it is important to be in touch with more than one aspect of an idea or approach. “Research is highly important in all high technologies,” he said. “Without it, we would fall behind or the technology wouldn’t be adopted. On the other hand, the development of products themselves is essential in order to show that it’s paying off.”
Andy Watson, Quantum Dot’s vice president of business development, said the company’s first product — aimed at biological, cell and protein research — led to wider nanotech know-how and patents. The Hayward, Calif.,-based company’s processes were developed for use in its own products, but have also advanced nanotechnology’s role in general biology, Watson said.
“For us, it’s a mixture of research and products,” he said. “Research is leading to many new products. The research is very important to us because it’s driving our products, but there has to be some business justification while it’s done in a commercial organization and a realization that you’re building real business.”
A cycle of new products has helped Woodbury, N.Y.-based Veeco remain profitable despite the cyclical adversity in many pure-play areas of small tech, according to Don Kania, president of Veeco Metrology Group. “Our underlying strategy is new products, new products,” Kania said. “Half of our revenue comes from products less than 24 months old.”
Leo O’Connor, research director at Frost & Sullivan’s Technical Insights, said bottom-up technology — which involve assembling atoms or molecules into nanostructures — requires specific techniques that are still being perfected: soft lithography that employs printing, stamping, molding and embossing; catalytic growth; and use of scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes.
“It’s too soon to tell which will be most profitable as the techniques are still in development,” O’Connor said.
Those products were among those recently made available through Veeco’s online store, where semiconductor, data storage, telecom/wireless and other researchers from around the world can get their hands on investigative tools.
Kania said Veeco likes to think of the vast number of universities and laboratories studying nanotech as the company’s research labs, calling Veeco “a natural starting point” for investigating new ideas.
“A day doesn’t go by that we don’t get a call and we do quick evaluations,” he said. “We’re not going to develop new materials or do the manufacturing, but we’ll give you the tools to do it.”
Aberdeen Group research director Russ Craig said research provides the bridge between science and business, adding that tools designed to better understand phenomena are an integral part.
“That stuff is extremely important to understanding how it is that you’re going to put nanotech to work,” Craig said. “What’s down in the lab has to be something that can be commercialized, so all of these research tools will give people the means to do that.”
Kania also pointed out the need to leverage the expertise of others and being open to the correct mix of disciplines in the wide-open world of nanotech. “There’s really been a convergence of tools and understanding and a growth of understanding,” Kania said. I don’t believe this is a flash in the pan. I think there is a fundamental shift in how people do problem-solving.”
Gruber said that with the various disciplines coming together on nanotech, modular technologies and business models in which companies are able to plug in different approaches are advantageous. “It just makes good sense in business to leverage others’ expertise,” Gruber said. “We do spend a lot of our time in that investigation and analysis. We’ve tried to focus on tools that will help us today and we’re constantly making new contacts.”