My Optimistic Letter!
Between long discussions over the years with my SAB (Scientific Advisory Board), the top Ph.D candidates I work with closely and the daily news on “small technologies” at our site, www.Nanotechnology.com, I am a strong supporter of the clear evidence that scientific and technological advancement is growing faster and more impressively than at anytime in the past.
Moreover, these advancements will drive dynamic, high-profit, new products across dozens of industries for decades.
My somewhat more controversial thesis is that like gold mining companies in 2000 or tech in 1994, now is the perfect time to begin due diligence on public and especially private companies creating new paradigms and potentially game-changing niche markets involved in diverse, explosive growth industries like, alternative energy, advanced materials, medical diagnostics, so-called “green” and “clean-tech”, drug discovery and delivery and semiconductor manufacture, that are driven by nanotech and other cutting-edge technologies.
Unfortunately you’ve probably heard this before. From 1997 to 2005, a few first and second-tier VCs and the same number and quality investment banks promoted these ideas aggressively.
- They were too early for public market recognition.
- They terribly misjudged the lab to product time-cycle.
- They invested “sophisticated”, but scientifically uninformed, private and public money in what were essentially “science projects”.
Despite that, today, most investors are unaware, but as you’ll see below, there were/are MANY successes. (and we don’t mean stain resistant slacks)
As I pointed out in Nanotech Fortunes, the early stage interest was likely to bottom between mid-2006 and the end of 2009. This “bottoming” now looks likely to occur between mid-2008 and the end of 2009.
By mid-2006 we put together a scientific, technical and competitive landscape commentary on all the key “small technology” (micro and nanotech) driven companies outside the Fortune 500. It gave us leg up on hedge fund managers and others and our internal updates continue to provide us advantages. To review the early 2006 work click here: http://www.nanotechnology.com/dossiers/
Today, our team is gearing for an explosion of investment interest in the 2010 -2013 period.
Perhaps, with our help, you should be, too.
Nearly every day Fortune 1000 companies make announcements in nanotech like today’s by Hitachi - http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/19579/?nlid=604
In February 2006 our team had put together The Nanotechnology.com Small Technology Index and our scientific, technological and competitive-landscape reviews (short, free sign-up to site required) of the key, publicly-traded companies. Two of the three Index companies taken over since its founding in February 2006, Freescale (FSL) and Applied Films (AFCO), were huge investment successes, taken over at incredible premiums (Freescale being the largest tech takeover in private equity history at $17 billion).
Last week we looked at the bad news, but there is plenty of good (links go to our exclusive 2006 sci/tech/competitive commentary):
- Private nanotech battery company, A123, continues to impress and grow (in news reports at least) closer to possible electric car and other applications, even while the nanotech solar companies over-promise and under-perform.
- Advanced Battery (GBT) rose from $0.41 in 1/06 to a recent $5.70!
- ISIS Pharma (ISIS) rose from $2.85 in 2/06 to a recent $16.80!
- Ilumina (ILMN) which we tagged the poster-child of “small tech” success went from $4.25 in 8/04 to a recent $61!
- FormFactor (FORM) zipped from $16 in 8/04 to a recent $44.
- Alnylam Pharm (ALNY) moved from $5 in 11/04 to $35.50 recently!
- Advanced Magnetics (AMAG) leapt from $6 in 2/05 to $68.50 a few days ago!
- Elan Corp (ELN) has grown from $3 in 3/05 to more than $22 recently.
There are more: Check out 3 year charts and our commentaries for PANL, MTSC, CPHD and ANSS! Relative to their relevant bogies and the QQQQ, they have all dramatically out-performed.
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