NanoHorizons Wins Second Funding Round

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NanoHorizons Wins Second Funding Round

By Eben Tessari ⋅ June 3, 2008 ⋅

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NanoHorizons announced that it has raised approximately $6.7 million in a second round of funding from Penn Venture Partners, L.P., Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania, and a bunch of other private investors. Half of the investments have been funded, with the remainder to be funded (subject to attaining certain milestones) within one year.

From their corporate slogan:

NanoHorizons, invents, designs, and manufactures advanced nanoparticles that add permanent, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly antimicrobial and performance-enhancing characteristics to consumer, commercial, and industrial products.

The company is a perfect example of how marketing can change perception. First of all, anything “nano” is pretty hot. Awesomely hot. Kind of like the internet bubble hot. In my dreams (I realize this isn’t how it works and is a wild simplification/exaggeration but humor me), I can see this conversation between an entrepreneur and VC:

Founder: Hey, so we have this company.. interested?
VC: Um… I’m really busy.
Founder: The company is called, “Nano xyz”
VC: We’d be crazy not to fund this! How much do you need?

This herd mentality isn’t new, isn’t going away and probably isn’t a bad thing (who cares if everyone makes money, right?).

I just feel like playing the contrarian today. First, though probably slightly more complicated, let’s agree that soaking various cloths in a silver powder isn’t nanotechnology and isn’t overseen by “experienced nanotechnicians” as stated in the press release.

Secondly, since the company is now marketing its SmartSilver technology to retail clothing manufacturers, maybe we should discuss how silver particles may be unsafe for the masses.

Imagine 200 million socks with this technology being washed every day leading to the silver leeching into our waste or even drinking water. Do we know how this silver will effect the environment or even our bodies?

I’m not against NanoHorizons as a company, in fact, I think the company has a brilliant marketing strategy. They are doing exactly the right things to grow their market in, what I would guess, is a pretty competitive market place (I could be wrong, butI can’t imagine there is a huge barrier to entry in getting your hands on some silver dust).

It will be interesting to see where this market is in 5 years. If NanoHorizons has anything to say about it, I’m sure they’d like everyone covered in a thin silver veneer.