Tag Archives: Small Times Magazine

Jan. 18, 2006 — NanoGram Corp., a developer and licensor of core process technology enabling the manufacture of nanostructured materials for optical, electronic and energy applications, announced that it has raised $18.7 million in a new round of financing.

The round was led by Technology Partners and included all existing NanoGram investors: ATA Ventures, Nth Power Technologies, Bay Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Rockport Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and SBV Venture Partners.

The company said the new funding will be used to expand efforts in optical nano-composites and applications of nanomaterials in energy products, and to pursue innovations in electronic materials and composite structures for imaging applications.

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Jan. 17, 2006 — Nano-Tex LLC has launched a search for its top leader after Donn Tice stepped down as chief executive officer. Jim Curley, who joined Nano-Tex as chief financial officer last June, is serving as interim CEO.

Tice’s three-year contract expired at the end of December. Tice cited personal reasons for leaving Nano-Tex, a company whose nanotechnology-based textile enhancements have appeared in more than 100 apparel and interior furnishing brands, including Land’s End, Brooks Brothers, L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer and Lee Jeans. It has licensed its technology to more than 80 textile mills. Under Tice, the company has expanded its reach to include Turkey, India and other parts of Asia.

“I’m ready for a change after (traveling) 125,000 miles a year for three years,” he said. Tice said he is assisting in the transition at Nano-Tex but no longer has a formal association with the company.

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Tice is on the advisory board of the NanoBusiness Alliance and has been a prominent speaker at nanotech events. He said that he will remain involved in the nanotechnology business community and has been in discussions with colleagues.

Curley joined Nano-Tex a few months after the company announced that it had raised $35 million in a Series A round in 2005. Curley’s previous position had been as CFO at LeapFrog Enterprises, an educational toy and game business that he helped go public in 2002. In recent years, Nano-Tex has been considered a strong candidate for an IPO as well.

— Candace Stuart

Jan. 17, 2006 — NeoPhotonics announced that it has shipped 1 million bi-directional (Bi-Di) transceivers for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) applications, primarily for networks in Japan. NeoPhotonics made the announcement at the Fiber Optic EXPO (FOE) in Tokyo, where the company is exhibiting its line of Bi-Di transceivers and other products.

“The fact that we shipped over 1 million Bi-Directional transceivers in the last two years indicates the high quality and reliability of our product line,” said Zhangyong Huang, president of NeoPhotonics China (formerly Photon Technology Co., Ltd.). “Bi-Di transceivers that operate over a single strand of fiber are key to reducing capital and operating expenditures in FTTH deployments. The single fiber concept reduces system cost, doubles capacity and simplifies network design and fiber management.”

Jan. 16, 2006 – NanoProducts Corp., a Longmont, Colo., maker of nanoscale materials, announced it intends to expand its nanoscale material manufacturing and marketing capability following a $16.4 million investment.

The investment was led by Koch Nanomaterials Inc., a subsidiary of Koch Genesis Co. LLC. Koch Nanomaterials became a majority owner of NanoProducts in the deal. Southern California Gas Co. also recently increased its investment, the company said. NanoProducts’ line of performance materials includes metal oxide, non-oxide and formulated, functionalized compositions.

Jan. 13, 2006 — BioDelivery Sciences International Inc. (NASDAQ: BDSI) announced the appointment of Mark Salyer to the newly created position of executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Most recently, Salyer served a dual role as senior vice president of sales and marketing for the U.S. and corporate vice president of global franchise management-respiratory for Altana Pharma AG. Prior to joining Altana, Salyer spent 17 years at GlaxoSmithKline in numerous leadership roles including vice president of global commercial strategy for respiratory products.

Jan. 13, 2006 – Kristofer Pister, an engineering professor and MEMS pioneer at the University of California, Berkeley, received national recognition for his invention of “smart dust” wireless sensor networks. The Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) announced today that Pister won the Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technology Innovation. The I/UCRC is an independent association made up of 41 National Science Foundation-funded centers representing more than 60 universities.

Pister’s work on miniaturized sensors, or “motes,” that communicate through a self-organized wireless network gained momentum in the late 1990s with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The technology has been used for monitoring buildings to make them more energy efficient and for studying wildlife habitats. The military is looking at smart dust as a surveillance technology.

In 2003, Pister took an industrial leave of absence to launch the company Dust Networks Inc., where he is chief technology officer. He also is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley and co-director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center.

Jan. 13, 2006 — Aviza Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: AVZA), a Scotts Valley, Calif., supplier of semiconductor equipment and process technologies for the semiconductor, compound semiconductor, nanotechnology and other markets, announced that its president and chief executive officer, Jerry Cutini, has been appointed to the SEMI North America Advisory Board. In addition to his role on the board, Cutini will also serve on the communications and membership sub-committee.

The advisory board is comprised of 17 executives from companies in the semiconductor equipment and materials industry. It represents the interests of members in North America by defining policy and strategic direction for regional specific programs.

The board is specifically chartered with strengthening the financial, market and technology performance of SEMI member companies through programs and initiatives, influence on the device community and impact on public policy.

Jan. 12, 2006 — Lumera Corp. (NASDAQ: LMRA), a Bothell, Wash., nanotechnology company, announced that it has entered into a collaborative agreement with Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, a division of the medical school.

Under the agreement, Lumera and the medical school will develop a next generation silicon chip substrate that combines Lumera’s NanoCapture technology with the medical school’s methodology for nucleic acid programmable protein arrays, or NAPPA.

The collaboration is intended to result in a 10,000-spot protein array that could significantly increase the speed of drug discovery and life science research.

Jan. 12, 2006 — Starpharma Holdings Ltd., a Melbourne, Australia, developer of nanotechnology solutions for pharmaceuticals, announced that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track status to VivaGel, an investigational new drug for the prevention of HIV.

VivaGel’s new drug application will receive priority review, which has a shorter review time, said John Raff, Starpharma chief executive, in a prepared statement. The status will also provides more opportunity for Starpharma to communicate with the FDA.

VivaGel is currently being developed as a vaginal microbicide gel to prevent the transmission of genital herpes and HIV. The company was also recently awarded $20 million by the U.S.-based NIAID, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to accelerate its development.

Jan. 12, 2006 — JMAR Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: JMAR) announced it has completed its move into its new product development and headquarters building located in San Diego.

The 23,000 square foot facility brings together JMAR’s BioSentry product development team, its Compact X-ray Microscope and X-ray Nano Probe research and development team, and its corporate office into one center.

The building is arranged to provide a mix of shared and special purpose facilities, according to the company. Mechanical and electrical laboratories, a customer training room, and machine shop are shared by all product lines. A specialized biological lab is intended to enable the BioSentry team to expand their pathogen library faster and at lower cost. Specialized laser labs are intended to provide the X-ray products group with state-of-the-art product development and testing facilities.