There are few people that can see the potential of future
technologies. I believe that it takes someone with both technical
and business sense that can see what is possible … and someone who
does not limit their thinking. Steve Jurvetson is such a person.
Steve is a Managing Director of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson
… one of the firms that I believe really understands what to look at
in Nanotech. It was cool to see that several of their portfolio
companies joined together to build a NanoCar …
There was a lot of good information and perspectives about NanoTech …
that Nanotech is the overlap of numerous disciplines … Lab
experiments are moving from real
to simulation (e.g. using wind tunnels moving to simulation of wind
tunnels) … and that Patents are continuing to be an issue that
are going to require exploration. He talked about many of the
perspectives on the importance of education, and showed some very
interesting graphs on the growth of PhD grads in America.
DFJ has a large portfolio that I have to admit I really like … some
of the areas of their investments are: Bio-Nano-Organic Hybrids,
Bioinformatics & Materialinformatics, Nano Manufacturing and Tools,
Sub-wavelength
Photonics, Optical Integrated Circuits, MEMs, and many others.
I’m going to look into many of their investments … they are in
various stages of growth with many of them already offering
products. This is a list that I was able to put together:
- Zettacore – molecular memory
- Arryx – holographic laser steering
- Steve showed an amazing video of using Arryx laser tweezers to trap, hold and move a
single sperm, and then weigh the DNA of that sperm to determine if it contained male or female DNA. This sorting is designed for the cattle industry to pick cows and bulls for different purposes. The same laser can then kill the sperm if it’s the wrong type! - EGeen – biotechnology
- Intematix – Combinatorial Materials R&D
- D-Wave Systems – commercializing superconducting quantum computational systems
- Imago – providing 3-dimensional imaging and analysis capabilities to nanotechnology
industries - HyperNex – crystallographic microstructure monitors for production control in semiconductor
manufacturing - Media Lario – design, manufacture, characterisation and assembly of high precision mechanical
and optomechanical systems - Nano Opto – creates new classes of densely integrated, modular nano-optic components
- Microfabrica – a leader in microdevice manufacturing
- NeoPhotonics – integrate optical communication on a low cost, proprietary, scalable
manufacturing platform - BinOptics – designs, develops, and manufactures monolithically integrated optoelectronic
components based on indium phosphide and other semiconductor materials - SiWave – specializes in Optical MicroSystems and MEMS Fabrication and Product Development
services - Luminus Devices – solid state lighting through practical applications of photonic lattice
technology - SoliCore – superior energy products through technology advancements – Solicore’s exclusive
next generation Polymer Matrix Electrolyte and unique processing technologies - FlexICs – pioneering the manufacturing of semiconductors on plastic at ultra low
temperatures - Molecular
Imprints – offers a novel technique of lithography and 3-dimensional printing, capable of
patterning nano-scale devices and structures - Konarka Technologies – builds revolutionary, light-sensitive products using next generation
nanomaterials that are coated on rolls of plastic -
Coatue – organic electronics (acquired
by AMD)
NanTero – developing NRAM™, a high-density nonvolatile random access memory chip, using
nanotechnology
NanoCoolers – creating tiny machines without moving parts that will cool electronic devices