Last week was an interesting week for nanotech funding, with three deals announced recently at Nantero, Nanomix and Nano-Tex. On the fifth anniversary of the peak of dot com frenzy, has Nano- become the new dot com?
Two of those companies were indeed initially funded back in the days of a collapsing stock market when nanotechnology suddenly became an instant solution to all of those souring investments in companies which with hindsight seemed particularly dumb ideas. While we will see a growing number of M&A deals as hope turns to frustration which turns to a need for investors to recover whatever they can, it will be interesting to see which of the 2000-2001 crop of startups become the Candescent ($500m of VC money for a promising technology which noone could make) or dogfoodonline.com (just plain stupid) of the nanotech world.