What ever happened to Nanotech? (TINY)

Is the Nanotechnology sector a forgotten fad, or is time for it to make a long, hard ride to the top once again? (That's what she said!)

The team at Harris & Harris Group, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:TINY) doesn't think it's over yet. At December 31, 2008, 99.9 % of its venture capital portfolio was invested in companies commercializing or integrating products enabled by nanotechnology or microsystems.

One of Tiny's holdings, Kovio Inc. has recently developed a breakthrough in RFID technology.

Kovio's technology platform is based on the combination of high-performance silicon inks and graphics printing technology. This enables the fabrication of silicon devices over large areas, on flexible substrates and at a fraction of the cost of conventional silicon technology. Kovio's additive printed silicon technology is significantly more clean and resource-efficient than conventional silicon technology. The printed silicon platform will facilitate additional item-level intelligence beyond identification by integrating printed sensors and displays.

"While there has been a lot of talk about RFID over the past decade, affordability is the No. 1 requirement for RFID to displace the barcode for item-level intelligence," said Rob Chandra of Bessemer Venture Partners, an early investor in Kovio. "With Kovio's printed silicon platform, we are now ready to truly extend RFID to where it has the largest impact -- the consumer."

"Item-level tagging is going to be the biggest market for RFID, and Kovio's game-changing technology is bringing RFID to the price point required for item-level adoption much sooner than anyone could have expected," said Raghu Das, CEO, IDTechEx. "Now, less than a year since the company announced an all-printed thin-film transistor, Kovio is taking the technology out of the lab and into the commercial environment at a very brisk pace."

Another of Tiny's holdings, SiOnyx, is in the business of Black Silicon.

Almost ten years ago, graduate students in the laboratory of physics professor Eric Mazur at Harvard University stumbled across a new way of making silicon more responsive: they found that if they blasted the surface of a silicon wafer with an incredibly brief pulse of laser energy in the presence of gaseous sulfur and other dopants, the resulting material—which they called “black silicon”—was much better at absorbing photons and releasing electrons. And this week, after nearly three years in hyper-stealth mode, a spinoff company with an exclusive license from Harvard to commercialize the process has begun talking with reporters.

Executives for the company SiOnyx, believe that its technology will help semiconductor manufacturers build far more sensitive detectors and far more efficient photovoltaic cells, using essentially the same silicon-based processes they currently depend on—thereby revolutionizing areas such as medical imaging, digital photography, and solar energy generation.

Stockmasters, this is just a taste of the investments that Harris & Harris group (TINY) into Nanotech companies. It's obvious that they are being smart with their VC money, and this is an ideal time to get in while their stock price is near a 52 week low. 

For a full list of their portfolio of companies, see this link http://www.tinytechvc.com/portfolio.cfm

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