Round-up of the latest investments, deals and funding initiatives in nanotechnology December 2016-January 2017

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XG Sciences, Inc. (XGS), a supplier of graphene nanoplatelets and value-added products containing graphene nanoplatelets, has closed an agreement with The Dow Chemical Company for up to a $10 million senior credit facility, which may be drawn down in tranches by XGS at its discretion through December 2019. . XG Sciences and Dow agreed to hold commercial discussions including the potential out-license of certain of Dow’s manufacturing IP related to graphene nanoplatelets to XGS. “We are pleased to work with Dow on this agreement. We believe this financing will allow us to continue building on our leadership position as a global supplier of graphene nanoplatelets,” said Philip Rose, CEO of XG Sciences. “We have seven customers who are using our materials in their products and actively selling them to their customers or actively promoting them for future sales, and we expect that another 10 to 15 customers will begin to use our products commercially in 2017.”

Graphene Nanochem has received its first order in China for its drilling fluid Platdrill. Worth about US$360,000, the order is to service two wells in Changning in the southwest of the country, an area where 300 shale gas wells are expected to be drilled over the next five years.
Graphene and its partner Scomi are also marketing Platdrill as a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional oil based mud (OBM) in south east of China where drilling contractors are expected to use 80-120,000 of synthetics as a replacement for OBM.

Graphene quantum dots producer Dotz Nano has signed a marketing agreement with Strem Chemicals, a manufacturer and distributor of specialty chemicals headquartered in the U.S.
Strem Chemicals will aim to facilitate sales of Dotz’s GQDs to academic, industrial and government research and development laboratories, as well as commercial businesses using GQDs for research purposes. Versarien has acquired a majority stake in Cambridge Graphene, a spin-out company from the University of Cambridge established in May 2014 to commercialize graphene inks. Cambridge Graphene develops inks based on graphene and related materials using processes developed at the Cambridge Graphene Center. The spin-out company has commercialized graphene inks for novel technology applications.

Nantero Inc., who are developing next-generation memory using carbon nanotubes, has announced the closing of an over $21 million financing round. The lead investor in the round was Globespan Capital Partners and also included participation from both new and existing strategic and financial investors. Nantero currently has more than a dozen partners and customers in the consumer electronics, enterprise systems, and semiconductor industries actively working on NRAM®. The new funding will enable the company to support these partners in bringing multiple products into the market, while also enabling new customers to begin development. This financing round brings the total invested in Nantero to date to over $110 million.

API and MYBiomass announced a Joint-Development Work (JDA) for production of nanocellulose and cellulosic sugars from oil palm empty fruit-bunches (EFBs) into material as enhancing additives in textile, paper, and automotive parts amongst others. The JDA is funded by MYBiomass and harnesses MYBiomass’ strength in oil palm biomass supply, technology adaptation, market development, and combines this with API’s technical and material development expertise. API’s CEO Dr. Theodora Retsina remarks, “We are excited to work with MYBiomass to develop market and prototype applications using nanocellulose made from EFBs, which can add value to many established supply chains, including those targeted in this JDA.”