Possible Ventures invests in VSParticle

Nanotechnology, core to the $200Bn value-added materials (VAM) market and much more, has for decades been heralded as one of the most promising areas of science and industry. As we increase our capacity to control materials at the nanoscale we will be able to take advantage of countless technological advances that will literally reshape our physical world and accelerate planetary sustainability.

Achieving high-throughput for inorganic nanomaterials is considered the holy grail that will enable a series of step-changes: energy conversion and storage; developing durable artificial leaves (e.g., for converting CO2 and water into fuels); saving energy in the chemical industry; removing emissions that are threatening to health and climate; and other forms of technologies involved in assuring a sustainable future.

Yet nanotechnology has so far underdelivered on its promise. Constructing novel applications has been held back for a number of reasons. Lab procedures continue to be arduous and manual, with up to 1,000 development cycles needed per new nanoparticle. The development process is highly temperamental, often taking months or years to optimise nanoparticle synthesis (i.e., often only delivering a single nanoparticle). All this culminates in an inability to fabricate nanoparticles at any meaningful scale.

Right now, the brightest minds are building new solutions to overcome the biggest challenges of our time. But, for many of these problems, there's a fundamental impediment to quickly rolling out global solutions that scale - new materials take 15-20 years to develop.

VSParticle has built a proprietary NanoPrinter that reduces development cycles from months to minutes, shortening material development from 15 years to 1-2 years.

The 3D NanoPrinter delivers a scalable source of nanoparticulate material with broad applicability for scientific, engineering and manufacturing applications. The breakthrough technology underpinning this revolution is spark ablation - an aerosol-based generation method with superior capabilities for mixing different materials into single nanoparticles. This method provides a way to realise nanoparticles with controllable size, morphology, crystal structure and chemical composition on a large scale, at low costs, and in a safe and sustainable way.

This dramatically shortens the time to make new materials available for applications in semiconductors, sensors, solar cells, catalysis, bioelectronics, batteries, fuel cells and more.

Imagine a NanoPrinter that's able to print any material with the push of a button. Similar to the way an inkjet printer combines four base colours to print multiple colours digitally, VSParticle's NanoPrinter mixes 62 base elements in any combination by breaking up and controlling the size of the nanoparticles. The printer is material-agnostic and adds a second dimension of control over material properties using quantum mechanics, ultimately leading to 3D-printed objects.

The global nanomaterials market accounted for US$10.34bn in 2020 and is anticipated to grow to US$38.17bn by 2029 growing at a CAGR of 17.8% throughout the forecast period from 2021 to 2029. Further, BCG predicts we're on the cusp of double-digit growth for additive manufacturing (26%) and advanced materials such as nano-coatings (21%) or metamaterials (21%), with the convergence of these technologies potentially accelerating far beyond current projections.

In return for Intellectual Property Rights, VSParticle provides sponsored NanoPrinters to key ecosystems (e.g., academia, startups, corporates) that are shaping the future of zero-carbon technologies. The data and intellectual property produced from the NanoPrinters will be valuable and 99% of discoveries will only be in data form. While the optimal model is yet to be defined, there are parallels to large printer manufacturers who lease larger machines and charge per page printed.

In any case, the team has proven to be highly commercial having grown the business in a capital-efficient manner over the last years. Even before building the first full machine, multiple components have already been sold and shipped to companies and researchers in countries including the US, China, Sth Korea, Japan, with some 40 systems installed globally. These efforts generated early revenue for the company and, crucially, put the components into the hands of researchers who provided feedback on the technology and potential breakthrough applications.

Founded by a team of nanoparticle scientists, VSParticle has built on the spark ablation method that was pioneered by the company’s co-founder, Professor Andreas Schmidt-Ott, in 1988. The company has patented key areas around this method and will continue to file IP around new discoveries.

Enabling the Zero Carbon Age is only the beginning. Less than 1% of all advanced materials have been discovered or made. VSParticle's NanoPrinter is ready to unlock the "Materials Genome".

We’re excited to be backing Aaike van Vugt, Tobias Pfeiffer, Prof. Andreas Schmidt-Ott and the entire VSParticle team on their mission to revolutionise material development.

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