July 6, 2005 — Nanoplex Technologies Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., developer of nanoparticle technology for biotech applications, raised a $2.5 million round of funding and spun off from its parent, according to Chief Executive Michael Natan. The company was previously a wholly-owned subsidiary of SurroMed Inc.

The financing was an insider round (all investors were SurroMed investors) intended to bridge Nanoplex until it does its first outside round, according to Natan, who said that could happen as soon as six months to a year from now.

Until then, he said, the 20-person company will be busy determining what market it deems best to pursue. The company’s core competencies include nanoparticle synthesis, techniques to attach biomolecules to nanoparticles and nanoparticles to surfaces, using the results in analytical measurements and developing optical instrumentation and software for nanoparticle detection and quantitation, according to its web site.

“We feel these are tremendously versatile technologies,” Natan said. “There are so many possible applications that we needed more resources to explore them.”

Venture capitalists, he said, are interested in funding market-focused, rather than technology-focused, companies. “We need to do market analysis and decide what does it make sense for us to do.” He anticipates bringing on 5 to 6 more people to help with the task.

– David Forman