Downsizing

摘要

At the Palo Alto headquarters of Nano-sys, a nanotechnology start-up, Stephen Empedocles, the director of business development, is demonstrating some of his gee-whizz technology. His exhibit is a flat disc, where the surface on one side has been designed with a structure at the na-noscale that repels water. Dr Empedocles puts a few drops of water from a pipette on to the non-modified side. The droplets bead and cling as they would on the surface of a polished car. On the hydrophobic side, however, the droplets bounce and roll off like high-speed ball-bearings. They land wetly on your correspondent's sock. At the moment, Nanosys is one of the most talked-about start-ups in nanotechnology, but not for the reasons it would like. What it wants people to discuss is its library of materials with pre-determined characteristics (such as hydrophobic surfaces), made from an array of proprietary nanostructures. Instead, it has been getting lots of publicity for its attempt to go public last year. Its offering of 29% of its shares, at $15-17 a share, would have valued the company at well over $300m, but the issue was pulled because of poor market conditions at the time.