GS Venture, GS Group holding corporate venture fund, together with LLC “Carbon nanostructured materials”, being a part of the holding, has announced a competition among venture projects, research and business development teams using carbon nanostructured materials (CNM). Development and wide application of CNM in various industries is one of GS Group key activities. The holding has got CNM mass-manufactured and keeps developing innovative ways of using it since last year.
The contest is aimed at finding new relevant ideas for practical application of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers for further development of new composite materials and other products and technologies. GS Group will also help authors of the most promising projects to realize them. GS Venture specialists are looking for researchers and entrepreneurs that have commercially promising technological solutions for practical application of carbon nanostructured materials, produced by the holding. “From this contest we need to get potentially successful products and technologies, or find already existing commercial projects demanding investment, — Sergey Filimonov, Head of GS Group corporate venture fund, pointed out. — Authors of best proposals will not only win prizes, but also be offered R&D financing or a joint venture, as well as comprehensive scientific and technical support in Technopolis GS”. GS Venture welcomes projects that are related to composite materials, alloys and coatings, obtained on the basis of technologies using CNM; applied methods of dispergation, activation and inserting CNM in materials; perspective areas of CNM usage.
The competition will be held in three stages. At the first stage, starting on June 10 and lasting until July 15, 2014, applications will be accepted and projects for further participation in the contest will be selected. Their authors will have to supplement the initial applications with the advanced description of the planned R&D, and request for CNM samples. The jury will be gathering the information, selecting best solutions and providing CNM samples till August 31, 2014. At the third and final stage, after experiments with the provided samples, finalists will have to present the reasoning for investing in their projects with a description of the target product, the R&D and the business plans, including a detailed financial plan.
Carbon nanotubes and nanofibers represent the perspective innovative niche in the modern SciTech and industry. They feature the unique physical properties: the rupture strength is much higher than that of any known natural material; the thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes is eight times higher than that of copper; and the electroconductivity is not subject to the Ohm's law. All that allows creating advanced materials with improved characteristics in many industries.
Applications should be submitted at the contest’s page: http://nano.technopolis.gs/contest/
