NEW YORK — The NanoBusiness Alliance is forming three new “hubs” in San Francisco/Silicon Valley, San Diego and Michigan as well as a new network for coordinating the interests of angel investors.
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The NanoBusiness Angel Network is the first funding network aimed at helping early-stage small tech companies get out of the starting gate.
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A team of financial experts will evaluate companies seeking seed money from the group. The goal is to fill the funding gap for new nanotech companies at the earliest stages of development, when venture capitalists are assessing companies’ commercial potential.
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The group will also afford individual investors ground-floor insight into fledgling companies and an early opportunity to support the emerging nanotech sector.
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Nathan Tinker, executive vice president of the NanoBusiness Alliance, said the group is seeing both ends of the startup equation: companies seeking funding and investors looking to be part of the industry.
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“The NanoBusiness Angels will be key to helping many nanotech startups get across the ‘death valley’ stage.”
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The NanoBusiness Angel Network will be based in New York, and will launch its Web site at www. nanobusinessangels.com soon.
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“The NanoBusiness Angel Network as key to our mission,” said Mark Modzelewski, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He added, “Our organization isn’t like other industry associations that just promote their companies and lobby. The NanoBusiness Alliance is a catalyst in fueling the growth of the nanotechnology industry. Though we do the basics like other associations, in many ways we view ourselves as much more like Garage.com than say the National Association of Manufacturers.”
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The three new Hub organizations join two already established in Denver and Washington, D.C. They are intended to catalyze nanobusiness, Modzelewski said, by bringing together business leaders, researchers, government officials, investors and enterprises
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The San Francisco/SiliconValley Hub Advisory Board will include Deepak Srivastava from NASA, Roberta Achtenberg, senior vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Ben Savage of Wasserstein and Co., Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s Jennifer Fonstad and Scott Mize of AngstroVision, among others.
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The NanoBusiness Alliance expects to launch 15 more regional hubs in 2002. Some of the additional areas being considered include Virginia, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, New Mexico, Minnesota and Florida.
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The three new hubs will launch in June and July. Larger events for the Silicon Valley, San Diego and Michigan hubs are slated for the fall.