When Omar Knio and Timothy Weihs needed money to produce a reactive nanofoil to revolutionize computer technology, Maryland stepped up.
The State of Maryland.
“We?re a traditional, venture-backed company,” Reactive NanoTechnologies spokesman John Hannafin said. “The state actually acted in a role as venture capital.”
With a $50,000 grant from the Maryland Technology Development Corporation in 2001, the two Johns Hopkins professors were able to develop the technology they had ? until then ? only believed possible.
Their first product, a reactive metal foil built almost molecule by molecule ? or nanoscale ? made it possible to weld heat-sensitive electronic components to a circuit board far easier than laser welding, Hannafin said.
“When you excite it with a little bit of energy from a battery or a flame, it reacts with an extreme amount of heat,” he said.
The reaction is highly localized, however, and surrounding materials will not heat up, he said.
Additional grants, $15,000 to test the market and $75,000 installments for project management, helped Reactive prepare for commercial production of their technology.
The return on investment to the state is not direct, TEDCO Executive Director Renee Winsky said. The state has funded 70 projects with the Maryland Technology Transfer Fund grants of $75,000 or less. Of the $4 million awarded, recipients have raised $138 million in private and federal investment, Winsky said. That money builds high-tech businesses that contribute to the state?s tax base.
After the initial state grant, Reactive qualified for state Department of Business and Economic Development grants for the following three years and took advantage of low-cost, high-tech incubator space in the state?s Boston Street facility in Hunt Valley.
In all, it received $5.6 million in grants from state and federal sources, but since its founding, the company pulled in another $11 million in private capital, Hannafin said. The nanotech foil has been on the market since 2005 and they anticipate their investors will start seeing the returns on their capital in the near future.
“We were able to attract a good group of venture capital,” Hannafin said. “The grants were a tremendous way to get started and establish the core technology so we can get funded. We are essentially at the end of our grant cycle and relying solely on venture capital.”
