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Alan Shalleck-NanoClarity
 | June 12th, 2018 No Nanotechnology Unicorns Yet Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC As yet no nanotechnology unicorns.- Nano ventures whose stock price soars beyond economic justification when taken public - exist. "No nano unicorns" is a far cry from the predicted breakthroughs and unique businesses that pundits told the investing world in 1999 would emerge from a dedicated focus on the 0.1 - 100.0 nanometer material world. Nanotechnology based unicorns would swarm because of technological breakthroughs.Smart prognosticators predicted materials revolutions and a new economic growth phase. Read the Whole Article |
| March 17th, 2015 The Non-Economic Graphene Flatland Déjàs-vu All Over Again! Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Born 15 years ago with the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the nanotechnology dream continues through the Graphene World. "Graphene applications will finally provide the long promised nanotech economic riches." The Graphene World (applications of planar single atom thick Nano sized sheets of linked carbon atoms technology) to many scientists and investors is the new realizable Carbon Nanotube (CNT) World! If CNT's potentially were good but unrealizable; Graphene should be better and, from what we have learned, realizable! "Look what we can do with them," they say. The rush is on ... but (pardon my English) it is déjàs-vu all over again. Read the Whole Article |
| September 15th, 2014 Progress - Profitable Nanotech Investment Business Models Coming Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Finally - a light at the end of the tunnel - progress -at least in a few end product markets and development facilities. Fifteen years after the first NNI and of amazingly creative nanoscience, fundamental research at the nanoscale, four generations of instrumentation/ production equipment and "top down" nanotech based but uneconomic products, investors may be on the edge of a second opportunity for profits within a new nanotechnology world. Read the Whole Article |
| March 18th, 2014 NOT NOW- MAYBE NEVER Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC A new wave of IPO's is on us. But there are no Nanotechnology companies on the docket. Not now - maybe never. Read the Whole Article |
| July 26th, 2013 An "Apollo-like" National Nanotech Program to Solve Cancer Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC After over a decade of nanoscience development, and expenditures worldwide of $1.5 billion in private and public funds dedicated to the development and clinical application of multi functional nanoparticles (MFNP) for targeted cancer treatments, there still are no major clinical (in vivo) anti cancer successes for nanotechnological multifunctional targeted particles long touted as the answer to curing cancer. Read the Whole Article |
| April 29th, 2013 Nanotech "Scaling Up" Technologies Progress Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC A year ago I asked: why Nanotech was not yet the projected world changing technology? I answered: ‘there are deficiencies in the scale up technology and business models so far employed." Interestingly this year we seem to be making progress in that key deficiency … reliably scaling up nanotech to useful sizes. What do we know now that we didn't understand 14 years ago when the first NNI was passed or even last year? Read the Whole Article |
| October 9th, 2012 Transiting The Nanotechnology Valley of Death NanoComp Technologies Inc. - A Model for the Industry Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC For the last six years I've been advising nanotechnology companies how to transit the "Valley of Death" (VOD), the stage of a Nano venture when most of the nanoscience is completed and a jump over the VOD to a macro business has to be accomplished and financed. Most nanocompanies get stuck at the VOD and either stagnate or die. However, it is rewarding to find a Nano company, Like NanoComp Technologies Inc. (NTI) that is successfully transiting the VOD - driving to become sustainably profitable by making and selling Nano based stuff in the macro world. It can be a model for all of you who are stuck before or in the VOD or don't know how to start bridging the gap. Read the Whole Article |
| March 23rd, 2012 Nanotechnology Valley of Death Redux:Why Nanotech is Not Having the Impact Predicted in NNI Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC 13 years ago after the first National Nanotechnology Initiative the economic global impact predicted for Nanotechnology just hasn't occurred. There is no ‘nanotechnology industry" as was projected. Todays ‘progress' in nanoscience doesn't mean that economic impact won't occur in some form later but the four and eight million new jobs created by nanotechnology companies and products just haven't materialized. Some have occurred but certainly not nearly that number of new jobs have been created. If you recall, many new "Nanotechnology" IPO's and financing opportunities were projected and those too have fizzled after spending billions and billions on nanotech R & D. Where were we wrong and how does the path change over the next decade? Read the Whole Article |
| July 10th, 2011 An Underwriter's Laboratory for Nanotechnology Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC We should create our own 'official and recognized' standards and certification laboratory that will stamp nanotech products safe with a "NUL" (Nanotechnology Underwriters Laboratory) stamp so that the world can be comforted the product being bought has successfully met the highest tests for safety and sustainability at an internationally accepted independent testing body created and backed by the entire nanotechnology industry - worldwide. Read the Whole Article |
| April 20th, 2011 A New Method For Financing Nanotechnology Companies In A Networked World Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Let's network nanotech companies when financing them to hedge underwriting risk and to raise the probability of upside for the investor. Form a virtual company with 3+ divergent product lines in three different markets where a "basket" of the stocks of the three companies make up the ‘virtual' company stock that is sold to raise funds for the entities. Read the Whole Article |
| January 29th, 2011 "Open Innovation" Applied to Nanotechnology Commercialization Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Since the all bridging technology and manufacturing expertise is missing, I suggest a different approach to rapidly obtaining these two missing elements in every section of the nanotech industry. That new approach is called "Open Innovation" and it seems to work. In fact, it is a way of multiplying your development and commercialization efforts by using the Internet to maximum advantage and in a most innovative way. Read the Whole Article |
| October 12th, 2010 Nanotechnology Transition to Commercialization The Time Has Come Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Profitable commercialization of nanotechnology world wide is finally happening, and few of you are acting within this sea change with your own accelerated commercial push. Nor is the funding industry recognizing the nanotech "industry" evolution by adding megadollars for production to the still available stimulus funding. Wake up. You've been expecting this trend for over a decade. Move those prototypes to the market now. Read the Whole Article |
| June 21st, 2010 Nanotech and Preventive Medicine Need for Major Government Sponsored Biomarker ID Program Part 2 Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The greatest threat to long term US economic stability is runaway health care costs. Nanotechnology is at the center of most new medical diagnostic processes. Increasingly, the information gained from new diagnostics will encourage preventive medicine (or precision medicine as defined by Clayton Christensen in his book, Disruptive Prescriptions) that will save billions of dollars in future healthcare costs. Precision diagnostics, based in part on nanotechnology, is on the critical path to national health cost containment and control , and by extension, furture economic sanity. Read the Whole Article |
| April 11th, 2010 Nanotech and Preventive Medicine Part 1 Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The emergence of preventive medicine in the health care marketplace requires a change in the way in which patients encounter the healthcare market (Point of Care - POC) physician process and in how the payers … the insurance companies, government, Medicare, Medicaid,Military, etc… recompense necessary and many unncessary procedures and expenses. If we don't change the ways in which we do healthcare today, there is little hope of structural and process reformation … or financial sanity. Read the Whole Article |
| January 5th, 2010 "2010 Outlook - 2009 Recap" Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC 2009 was not a great year for Nanotechnology. Maybe 2010 will be better. Let's explore the 2009 highlights. (Tim Harper of Cientifica published a December white paper on this subject that I urge you to read. Tim and I have similar views. My recommended strategies are somewhat different. ) One major change occurred in 2009 - "Green" completely replaced "Nanotech" as the hot "next big technology" arena - despite all agreeing that the road to green runs through the nanotech space. Read the Whole Article |
| October 15th, 2008 The Nanotech IPO Window is Still Closed. A123 Systems was a One Time Event Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC I'm going to disappoint those nanotechnology senior executives and VC's waiting in the wings to IPO but the general market for nanotech initial public offerings is not yet open - even in the after wash of A123 Systems' spectacularly successful IPO this past month. Despite excessive "dot com era" underwriter hype of "new opportunities", the IPO market remains very tightly shut for high tech offerings that have few sales and no profits … i.e. most nanotech based companies. Read the Whole Article |
| August 2nd, 2009 The Media's Wrong View of Nanotechnology Put Reality Back in the Image Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The media presents Nanotechnology in an unbalanced way. That view needs correcting. Most current nanotech articles focus only on Environmental, Health and Safety issues emphasizing solely the dire risks of nanotechnology while saying virtually nothing about the amazing (and safe) commercialization of the industry within most parts of the world wide GNP. On review, based on real product experience and good laboratory data, it seems all dire forecasting of immediate danger is a complete fabrication. Such false publicity is bad for the industry and worse for nanotech's promise in the economy. Read the Whole Article |
| May 18th, 2009 The Solution is the Government. Get Stimulus Money to Survive Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Everywhere there are signs of economic trouble in the nanotech world. Nanogen goes chapter 11. Arrowhead loses more money. Nanophase changes management. Another nanotech company announces layoffs. A nanotech company tells of retrenchment. The primary strategic issue is where to find resources to survive. Most nanotech executives shrug when asked the question but there is only one possible answer. Swallow your pride as an independent entrepreneur. Go for the government stimulus money! Do it locally and quickly. Read the Whole Article |
| January 28th, 2009 Jobs Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC If you are a nanotechnology executive you probably have been spending sleepless nights trying to determine a survival strategy for your company. You need to focus on "Jobs." Read the Whole Article |
| December 3rd, 2008 Act Counter-Intuitively in Bad Times Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The strategic alternatives for a nanotechnology company in this foreboding economic environment dictate that you have to manage counter-intuitively. After you have followed my advice first to maximize your cash position for survival (October column), you then need to manage your plans and programs so that, when the economy turns, your company is positioned to catch the economic upturn in the best possible way. What I am suggesting you do is counter to everything a concerned management intuitively plans in times of economic stress. My recommendation is: Don't cut back to the bare bones. Rather, aggressively develop, move products to market, and sell your hearts out because you have been presented with a major opportunity. Read the Whole Article |
| October 15th, 2008 Maximize Your Liquidity - Make Sure Your Nanocompany Survives the Recession Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC A prolonged recession is bad for nanotechnology companies because on the market side, fewer customers will opt for nanotechnology innovation and others will have reduced budgets with no allocation for your new nanotech products. On the input side, little or no new or incremental venture or risk capital from VC's, institutions or individuals will be available to use to manufacture and sell what you have in the hopper and/or to grow as you have planned. These negatives project to cash flow pressure on most nanotech companies during the recession months. Many nanotech companies will go out of business. Therefore, the need now is for survival of your company. My suggestion is immediately build and maximize your liquidity for staying power … no other strategy makes any short term sense. Read the Whole Article |
| August 15th, 2008 A123 Systems is IPO'ing Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC After the aborted NanoDynamics IPO disaster in Dubai in February and six months of bleak IPO news in general, we have a new try at a nanotechnology IPO. On August 8, 2008 A123 Systems, Inc. (A123) of Watertown, Massachusetts filed a registration statement with the SEC. Read the Whole Article |
| July 6th, 2008 Profiting by Countering the Economy Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Attention management of a budding nanotechnology venture. The world economy has become your worst nightmare. Everything looks bleak and not filled with economic possibilities. However, that is not true. Let us see if we can construct the correct strategic action plan to counter all the bad economic news. Read the Whole Article |
| May 28th, 2008 Near Term Nanotech Profits from Fuel and Transportation Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Where do near term profits from nanotech products come? From the transportation sector, nanotech executives! $50 - $100 tanks of gas should spur every nanotech executive to action. In business, follow the money. The money is now in nanotech opportunities to save fuel and energy. We are in a crisis, people. Be creative and aggressive. Anything that will save the car owner, the truck driver or the automobile and truck manufacturers gas or diesel fuel money will sell in our new energy "cost exhaustion" environment. Read the Whole Article |
| May 1st, 2008 A NANOTECHNOLOGY UNDERWRITERS LABORATORY REVISITED Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Previously I have proposed that the Nanotechnology industry, led by the NanoBusiness Alliance (that industry supported responsible representative of what is good and beneficial about nanotech in society), and the all companies in nanotech (at all links in the value chain) create a NUL - a Nanotechnology Underwriters Laboratory - similar to the UL - Underwriters Laboratory- used by the electrical supply industry, and establish a formally recognized environmental qualification and safety stamp of approval called the NULL - Nanotechnology Underwriters Laboratory Listing. In NUL, all pending nanotechnology containing products are rigorously and responsibly tested for performance and for immediate and long-term health effects and safety, using scientific and objective protocols of acceptance and release to the market. Read the Whole Article |
| February 20th, 2008 NanoDynamics IPO Successful, then Aborted ... NanoDynamics is Victim Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC On February 11, 2008, NanoDynamics, Inc. (NDMX) successfully IPO'd using the Reg. S (offshore issuance procedures allowed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission) on the Dubai Stock Exchange (DIFX), raising $100,000,000 + with Global Crown Capital Ltd. (GCC) of San Francisco the lead manager (underwriter) and Daman Securities International (Daman), of Dubai, a member of the DIFX, the co-manager (co-underwriter). On Friday, February 11, 2008 the DIFX released a stunning announcement that " NADX had voluntarily requested ‘delisting' on the DIFX due to differences between the conditions presented for listing and the IPO prospectus and was returning all invested funds to the original investors!" The failure points to the lead underwriter, Global Crown Capital. Read the Whole Article |
| January 22nd, 2008 The Unique NanoDynamics IPO: A Model for Other Nanotech IPO's Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The second nanotechnology IPO, NanoDynamics, Inc. (ND) is underway. Yes, NanoDynamics is finally going public … even in this worldwide down market, and insiders tell me it is already a successful offering. This ND IPO is unique and can serve as a model for other nanotech company managers thinking about raising money in the public marketplace. Why? Because NanoDynamics is going public on the deal hungry Dubai Exchange, not here in the US, and will be the first US company IPO on that exchange! Pretty creative, eh? This is one smart management team. Read the Whole Article |
| December 24th, 2007 "Nanotech Companies - Consolidate or Die" Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC At the end of 2007, let's propose a new industry-wide business strategy to make nanotech companies profitable and nanotechnology an investible industry. The current strategies aren't working. This new strategy, derived after much discussion and reflection, involves up-the-value chain focus and consolidation (roll-ups) of nanotechnology products and companies to provide the sales volume for profitable operations. Most of today's nanotech companies will never reach profitability configured as they currently are. My recommendation is a rejection of the sell what you have and the "go-it-alone" strategies. Read the Whole Article |
| October 19th, 2007 Time for an IPO Update Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC As many of you know, I explored the benefits and risks of two pending Nanotechnology IPO's this summer. They were NanoDynamics, Inc. of Buffalo, NY and Nanosphere, Inc. of Chicago, Il. Both offerings are planned at about $100 million and each was at a different stage of float. Since the financial markets, except for the real estate and mortgage segments, have recovered most of what they lost in August and September, and the Street pros are now making impressive money again, I thought I would revisit the status and outlook of these pending IPO deals. Read the Whole Article |
| September 18th, 2007 The Next National Nanotechnology Program? Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC It is time to explore what the next three to five year national nanotechnology funding allocation will look like. We have already benefited from two multiple-year, multibillion-dollar Presidentially-endorsed Federal programs and those funds have been spent building a nanotechnology infrastructure. Where the next nanotechnology roadway heads is up for grabs. Let the discussion begin. Read the Whole Article |
| August 16th, 2007 Nanosphere, NanoDynamics and NanoOpto (RIP) Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Summer months are usually financially dull. Not this year in the nanotechnology world. Events this summer have been dramatic. The fates of three nanotechnology companies that were on every nano-expert's (and Wall Street underwriter's) possible IPO list had divergent pathways. Two opted for IPO with different results and the other … well, see below. Read the Whole Article |
| July 20th, 2007 The NanoDynamics IPO - Part 2 Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Last month I discussed the NanoDynamics, Inc. (ND) IPO and why it, as probably the first successful nanotechnology IPO in four years, could change the nanotechnology public funding landscape. (The ‘road show' for the IPO has already begun.) I have received much agreement on the article from both the financial and the technical community. In that article, I described how ND's products were strategic "nano - green" solutions that were close to marketable products and how positive that was for the IPO. I also mentioned that the IPO funds were destined to create production (not research) facilities for active product introduction and marketing … leading to real sales and near term profits. Last, I mentioned ND's strong management. Because of these elements, it was clear to me that the IPO would be successful. However, my treatise was incomplete! Read the Whole Article |
| June 19th, 2007 NanoDynamics and the Funding Landscape Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Last month I was the first to mention how the planned $100 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) for NanoDynamics, Inc. (ND) might change the funding landscape for nanotechnology companies. It's a sea change. Research indicates that the NanoDynamics IPO should easily raise its $100 million and the stock should sell at or above offering price well beyond the restriction period. The reasons for ND's IPO's expected success become clear once you dig through the S-1 Prospectus, understand which specific green and nanotech markets ND's new products aim to penetrate and why ND will be profitable in both those markets. "Green and Nanotechnology" is a winning corporate (and Wall Street) strategy for the next decade. Read the Whole Article |
| May 25th, 2007 The Brief State of the Nanoworld in 2007 - Part 1 Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The nanotech industry is on a plateau. Not much progress has been made over the last twelve months in commercializing nanotechnology. Why? Social impedimenta - Environmental, Health and Safety concerns have held up rapid new nanoproduct introductions. And scaling to macro size win volume with quality and consistency has proved very difficult. But the Nano IPO market is opening up again. Read the Whole Article |
| March 16th, 2007 A Nanotech Environmental and Safety Proposal Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC On February 27, 2007, DuPont and Environmental Defense released a draft framework of a nanotechnology materials risk assessment procedure for comment. DuPont and Environmental Defense should be commended for a most comprehensive effort, but at the same time recognize that although many of the tests included are of universal necessity, the rest will stratify the industry into those that can afford to follow the guidelines and the smaller companies that will find commercializing their inventions inhibited by imposing the draft. Potentially, this draft can be the nanotech version of Sarbanes-Oxley - the accounting law that is so burdensome for small companies. An alternative is needed. Read the Whole Article |
| February 7th, 2007 Pyrrhic NanoPatent Pursuit Pratices Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Well, it has finally happened. Nanotechnology has begun to experience the long predicted triumph of the nanotech patent lawyers, potentially inhibiting the growth of the entire industry. A patent licensing suit is holding up a major nanoproduct line (nanotech based TVs) from commercial introduction. Unfortunately, the strategy being pursued by the patent holder is myopic and Pyrrhic. It is bad for the company's economic future and clearly a bad example for the industry. The suit is a strategic suicide and, if imitated, could severely limit nanotechnology's commercial growth in critical applications over the next few years. Read the Whole Article |
| January 10th, 2007 Finding the First Paying Customer for Your Nanotech Product Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC The Nanotechnology world in 2007 has "ready for prime time" nanotechnology products. From cell phones to coatings to structural elements to electronic displays to cosmetics to sensors to bioarray materials … and on. More than 400 nanotechnology based (or enhanced) products are for sale here in the US and more abroad. New nanotech products are being introduced monthly. Is this the long predicted turning point for nanotech? Have we reached a threshold where nanotech becomes a choice investment industry and begins to be courted by IPO and funding mavens up and down Wall Street? It should be … but the Street still sees nanotech as "not yet there" and its reasoning is probably misunderstood by the scientists/entrepreneurs currently managing the most promising nanotech ventures. That reasoning revolves around "paying customers." Read the Whole Article |
| December 21st, 2006 Carbon Dioxide Emissions to Carbon Nanotubes (Part 2) Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Last month I wrote about using in situ the globally warming Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fueled energy plants to make useful, and safely storable, Carbon Nanotubes CNT's) in quantity as a systemic solution to the CO2 emission-from-power-plants problem. This alternative had not been discussed so I was floating a trial balloon. The response to my suggestion has been astounding. Concerned citizens and technologists throughout the world have reacted. Interestingly, all the responses have been positive. Read the Whole Article |
| November 15th, 2006 The Greening of Power Plants Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Our primary environmental risk this century seems to be the increasing amount of CO2 emission from energy generating processes. The uncontrolled build up of atmospheric CO2 projects directly to catastrophic global warming (over 4o C by century end). What to do with the excess CO2 is our dilemma. Can Nanotechnology help to stop the growth or even reduce CO2 emission before it is too late? The preliminary answer is "yes … use the excess CO2 emissions to make carbon nanotubes ." Read the Whole Article |
| October 11th, 2006 Distinguishing Fact from Story in Nanotechnology Safety Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC This week is the most important week in the Nanotechnology in three years. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has held its first full public meeting on nanotechnology safety and environmental risk, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has placed a Notice of Rule making re. Nanotech product commercial release requirements in the Congressional Record. These two agencies have the potential to shut down the evolving nanotechnology industry before it begins to grow … an unacceptable prospect. Read the Whole Article |
| September 1st, 2006 An Important Nanotech Summer Alan Shalleck President, NanoClarity LLC Contrary to popular opinion, significant events moving the nanotechnology industry forward occurred this summer. The return on all the money invested in nanotech to date will begin to pay dividends during this next year. Read the Whole Article |
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