The standard, which among other things doesnt require the issuance of quarterly reports, could save companies lot of money, claims von Preysing. report by the U. K.based consulting firm Cientifica concluded that In Germany, that is no longer the case. The decline, he says, could be due to the skepticism of investors in the years after the dotcom crash in the He compares this to selling cement or bulk chemicals, which are not very profitable except for big companies like Degussa that can sell massive amounts. To succeed, startups must be more applicationfocused, says Harper.

Both companies products are still in clinical trials, but theyre promising, says Holman. That is exactly what Nanogate is doing, says Ralf Klenke of Nanogate Advanced Materials, subsidiary of Nanogate. Manufacturing Finance R&D Legal Education Profiles Bio Consumer Nanotech StockDefense Energy Environment Electronics Photonics Materials Tools AutoAero Print this article Email this article Still, the number of startup companies is good indicator of the state of German nanotech. German companies have been selling chemicals and materials around the world for 70, years, says Cientificas Harper.

Thats bit misleading, says Cientifica CEO Tim Harper, adding that large traditional chemical companies like BASF probably sell more nanomaterials per year than all the nanotechnologybased startup companies combined. Perhaps lack of venture capital is part of the reason there are fewer nanotech startups in Germany than in the where the number is probably well over 1,000, according to Charlie Harris, chairman and CEO of the U. S.based nanotech investment firm Harris and Harris. You dont care whether the funding comes from the government or VC.

Perhaps lack of venture capital in Germany is very strong, says Michael Holman, senior analyst at Lux, and the reports lead author.

The recent Lux report found that in just 36 million in venture capital was invested in Europe, compared to 550 million in the Startups augment stalwarts The climate for nanotech in Germany is not as serious as one might think.

He compares this to selling cement or bulk chemicals, which are not very profitable except for big companies like Degussa that can sell massive amounts. In Germany, that is no longer the case. It produces readytouse, customized microscopes, such as scanning probe microscopes, used to analyze nanostructures. The startups alone have created about 5,000 new jobs, representing onetenth of the total of about 50,000 German nanotech jobs, says Gerd Bachmann, coauthor of the VDI report. Another profitable company that spun off from academia is microscope manufacturer WITec.

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