Opening of an incubator of nanotechnology-based new companies at nanoGUNE
NanoGUNE will host entrepreneur initiatives through the creation of an incubator of nanotechnology-based new companies. This nanoincubator has been launched in the framework of an agreement signed by nanoGUNE and Bic Gipuzkoa Berrilan, an instituton devoted to innovation and the creation of new companies in Gipuzkoa.
The agreement represents a common effort to promote entrepreneurship and to boost, in the framework of the nanoBasque strategy, the development of a new industrial sector in the Basque Country that would be enabled by nanotechnology.
Bic Gipuzkoa Berrilan will scan and identify new projects and ideas that could be candidates to become nanotechnology-based business initiatives. Bic Gipuzkoa Berrilan will also investigate the feasibility of the existing proposals and will offer advice and guidance to entrepreneurs with the aim of maximizing success.
NanoGUNE will host the nanoincubator, where entrepreneurs will be able to start their activity. Entrepreneurs will benefit from the ongoing world-class research and state-of-the-art scientific equipment at nanoGUNE.
The nanoincubator has space to host 5 entrepreneur projects. The first new company to be hosted at nanoGUNE is Graphenea, a start-up company created in April 2010 with the mission of commercializing graphene wafers as well as developing graphene-based processes and conducting related research activities. Graphene, first obtained at the University of Manchester in 2004 (this yielded the Physics Nobel Prize of 2010), is a one-atom-thick planar sheet made of carbon atoms and their bonds, which is essentially an isolated atomic plane of graphite and exhibits extraordinary electronic and mechanical properties.