Start-up gets the golden touch
In a laboratory outside Oxford, Kevin Matthews shows off the "pot of gold" that he believes will make the fortune of his nanotechnology company, Oxonica. The rich burgundy liquid in the flask is a suspension of microscopic gold particles, tagged with biological molecules designed to diagnose disease.
Although nanotechnology, the science of the ultra-small, has attracted billions of dollars in public andprivate investment worldwide - and much hype inthe media - the field has generated few start-ups in the UK. None has moved as far as Oxonica in establishing a broad-based nanotech enterprise.
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When Dr Matthews be-came chief executive in April 2001, Oxonica was a failing spin-out from Oxford University, focused on developing phosphor dots for display screens. Now the dots have disappeared and the company is focusing on its growing energy and healthcare businesses, including clinical diagnostics based on gold nanoparticles.
"We are focused on driving up our revenues so that we can demonstrate as soon as possible that we can make money from nanotech," says Dr Matthews, 42. Oxonica aims to generate cash from products such as Envirox, a fuel additive to make diesel burn more efficiently, and Opti-sol, an ultraviolet ab-sorber for suncreams, to invest in clinical diagnostics: "We have a huge opportunity to develop diagnostics that will be much cheaper at the point of use, enabling any GP to obtain an instant result for a patient, rather than sending the test away to a lab," he says.
Although the buzz about nanotechnology started in the 1980s, when Dr Matthews was studying organic chemistry at Oxford, he did not pay attention to the field until the late 1990s. By then he was running the advan-ced coatings business of Al-bright & Wilson, the chemicals company he joined in 1992: "I realised how much nanotechnology had to offer in understanding how to build up inorganic materials and control how they interact with the environment."
After Rhodia of France took over A&W in 1999, Dr Matthews was offered a job running one of Rhodia's US businesses, but by then, he says: "I had identified nanotech as the direction in which my career should go, so I began to look for a start-up or small business to join in that area. Fortunately Oxonica advertised for a CEO - and I came on board."
Oxonica had been spun out of the university less than two years earlier but it was already floundering, with no market for its main technology and its original ￡950,000 funding - raised mainly from business angels - about to run out. "I knew before I joined that we had about eight weeks' cash left but I thought there were stronger promises of renewal than was actually the case," Dr Matthews says.
"There was a lot of re-search and business development activity but not much was driven towards actually having a product. The board was thinking at an operational rather than strategic level. My first job was to get a clear business plan in place and then to secure some more angel financing."
The plan focused in the medium term on Optisol, based on intellectual property from Oxford University, and Envirox, bought in from Neuftech, a small private company. Both Oxonica's founding scientists supported the new focus: Gareth Wakefield is still the company's head of research, while Peter Dobson runs the university's Begbroke Science Park, where the company is based.
After raising an interim ￡480,000 in summer 2001, Oxonica had the misfortune to start its main venture capital round two days before September 11 2001. "We sent the business plan out to 90 VCs and had more than 50 first-round interviews," Dr Matthews says. "A lot of companies were interested in investing but no one wanted to take the lead because everyone was so risk-averse that autumn."
The first half of 2002 was particularly nerve-racking. "We started each month without enough cash to close it," he says. "This is where things like R&D tax credits and bank loans underwritten by the Department of Trade and Industry help. We did consultancy work in the security area - anything to raise cash. The strategic plan became subordinate to the need to survive."
Having worked for 10 years in large companies, Dr Matthews was "a bit na?ve about small companies and their challenge. I probably underestimated the credibility gap. It was not enough to walk in and say you could do something - people would not believe you."
But the VC round finally fell into place in June 2002 with ￡4.2m raised. As well as a group of conventional funds, the German chemical giant BASF made its first VC investment in Oxonica. Rights issues in 2004 and Jan-uary 2005 brought in a further ￡6.6m, followed by a flotation on Aim that raised ￡7.1m net in July 2005.
The initial public offering did not bring in new institutional investors, says Dr Mat-thews: "A number of our existing investors wanted to take a larger stake so we raised the money from them. We went public to improve the business's recognition and facilitate acquisitions."
The first acquisition was Nanoplex, a private Californian company whose nanobased diagnostics complemented technology Oxonica had licensed in 2003 from Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Ithad a boost last month when Becton Dickinson, leading US medical technology company, agreed a co-operative re-search programme in clinical diagnostics with Oxonica.
There was also good news last month about Envirox, nanoparticles of cerium oxide that make diesel burn more efficiently. Petrol Ofisi, Turkey's leading diesel supplier, agreed to use Envirox across its national distribution network. Oxonica ex-pects the deal to add ￡6.7m to its sales this year - a huge boost, given that total turn-over was just ￡1.2m in 2005.
Oxonica thriftily occupies 1970s vintage of-fices and labs and Dr Matthews has a modest office almost devoid of decoration. He owns between 2.5 and 3 per cent of Oxonica, a stake he sees as "appropriate for someone who came in as a CEO and was not a founder". He feels as entrepreneurially in-volved as he would as owner-manager of a similar sized business, "but I can be slightly more detached from the technology and its origins", he says.
"It can be fraught and difficult at times - trying to keep the company financed, staying clean from a corpor-ate governance point of view, driving regulations forward - all with very few people." Oxonica had 10 employees when he joined; now there are 56, of whom 20 came with Nanoplex.
"But the benefits are that it is a very varied role, with a lot of scope for doing very positive things," he adds. "Many of my friends and former colleagues [in larger companies and universities] are having to deal with downsizing or retrenchment. Maybe it's the chemist in me. I love to make things - products or jobs or a new business."
老马自修“创业学”
在
牛津大学校外的一个实验室里，凯文?马修斯(Kevin Matthews)炫耀着手里的一个 “金罐”。装在他那个长颈瓶“金罐”中的，是一种浓浓的紫红色液体：肉眼看不到的金粒子组成的悬浮液，添加了用于诊断病情的生物分子。他认为，这个“金罐”将让自己的纳米技术公司Oxonica财源滚滚。
纳米技术(超微科学)在全球已吸引了数十亿美元的公共和私人投资，而且得到了传媒的大肆宣传，但在英国，这一领域的初创企业却少之又少。在建立应用广泛的纳米技术企业方面，没有谁能像Oxonica走得那么远。
马修斯博士2001年4月成为Oxonica的首席执行官，当时，该公司只是从牛津大学分离出来的一家日渐式微的公司，主要致力于改进显示屏荧光点问题。如今这一业务已经结束，公司正将重心放在它不断发展的能源和医疗业务方面，其中包括基于金纳米粒子的临床诊断业务。
42岁的马修斯博士表示：“我们正集中精力提高公司收入，这样我们就能尽早向世人表明，我们能从纳米技术中赚钱。”Oxonica计划把Envirox和Optisol等产品创造的收入投资于临床诊断业务。Envirox是一种提高柴油燃烧效率的燃料添加剂，而Optisol则是一种用于防晒霜的紫外线吸收剂。马修斯表示：“我们遇到了发展诊断科学的巨大机遇，诊断过程的成本将大大减低，使任何普通医师都能立即得出病人的诊断结果，而不用采集样本送到实验室。”
转型：困境中起航
尽管人们早在20世纪80年代即开始讨论纳米技术（马修斯博士当时正在牛津大学学习有机化学），但直到90年代末，他才开始关注这个领域。当时，他正负责经营化学制品公司Albright & Wilson的高级涂料业务（他于1992年加入该公司）。他表示：“我意识到，在理解如何构造无机材料，以及控制它们与环境之间的相互影响方面，纳米技术将拥有巨大的用武之地。”
在法国Rhodia公司于1999年收购Albright & Wilson后，马修斯博士被委派负责运营Rhodia的一家美国企业，但他说，到那时，“我已将纳米技术确定为我事业发展的方向，因此，我开始寻找一家初创企业或规模较小的公司，进入那个领域。幸运的是，Oxonica当时正在招聘首席执行官――然后我就上任了。”
当时，Oxonica从牛津大学分离出来还不到两年，并且陷入了困境，它的主要技术没有市场，主要来自天使投资者的95万英镑原始资金也快用完了。马修斯博士表示：“在加入之前，我就知道我们只剩大约可供维持8周的现金，但我认为，公司复兴的前景比表面上明朗许多。”
“当时公司有许多研究和业务开发活动，但没有多少是为了真正开发一种产品。董事会从运营而非战略的层面考虑问题。我的首要任务就是制定一个明确的商业计划，然后争取更多的天使投资。”
根据计划，公司中期内的主要精力放在了Optisol和Envirox上。前一种产品是根据牛津大学拥有的知识产权开发的，后者则是从小型私营企业Neuftech收购而来。创立Oxonica的两位科学家――加雷斯?韦克菲尔德(Gareth Wakefield)和彼得?多布森(Peter Dobson)――都对新的工作重点表示支持。韦克菲尔德目前仍是该公司的研究主管，而多布森则负责经营牛津的博格布洛克科技园(Begbroke Science Park)。Oxonica的总部就设在那里。
融资：一波又三折
2001年夏天过后，Oxonica已经筹集了48万英镑的临时资金。但不幸的是，就在它开始启动主要的创投融资行动两天后，9?11事件发生了。“我们把商业计划发给90家风险资本公司（VC），并进行了超过50次首轮面谈，”马修斯博士表示，“很多公司有意投资，但没人愿意领头，因为在那年秋天，人人都不愿承受风险。”
2002年上半年尤其令人伤脑筋。“我们每个月都没有足够现金支撑到月底，”他表示，“研发税收减免和英国贸工部(Department of Trade and Industry)担保的银行贷款帮了大忙。我们提供安全领域的咨询服务，做一切能做的事情来筹集资金。生存需要超越了战略计划。”
由于此前在大型公司工作了10年，马修斯博士“对小公司以及它们面临的挑战有点缺乏经验。我可能低估了大小公司间的信誉差距。这样一个小公司的信誉，不足以让你向人们表示你可以做一些事――人们不相信你。”
但融资行动最终在2002年6月取得突破，成功筹集了420万英镑。除了一些传统的基金，德国化工巨头巴斯夫(BASF)也将其首笔风险投资注入了Oxonica。通过2004年和2005年1月份的两次增资扩股，公司进一步募集了660万英镑。随后的2005年7月，Oxonica在另类投资市场(AIM)上市，募集了710万英镑。
马修斯博士表示，首次公开发行并未引入新的机构投资者：“很多现有投资者希望增持股份，因此我们向他们筹集了资金。我们上市是为了提高企业的知名度，以及便于展开收购。”
发展：收购合作忙
Oxonica的第一个收购对象，是加州的一家私营企业Nanoplex。该公司的诊断技术也基于纳米科技，对Oxonica 2003年从英国斯特斯克莱德大学获得授权的技术正好形成补充。上个月，美国领先的医疗技术企业Becton Dickinson同意与Oxonica合作，在临床诊断方面展开一个合作研究项目，对Oxonica而言也是一个振奋人心的消息。
上个月还有关于Envirox的好消息。Envirox是一种氧化铈的纳米粒子，可提高柴油燃烧效率。土耳其主要的柴油供应商Petrol Ofisi同意，在其国内分销网络使用Envirox。Oxonica预期这笔交易将让今年的销售额增加670万英镑――鉴于2005年的总营业额仅为120万英镑，这可是巨大的飞跃。
Oxonica仍在节俭地使用上世纪70年代的老式办公室和实验室，而马修斯博士寒酸的办公室里几乎没有任何装饰。他在Oxonica持有2.5%至3%的股份。鉴于他是以首席执行官身份加盟的，并非创始人，因此，他认为这一比例是合适的。在身心投入程度方面，他感觉自己与类似规模企业的股东经理人(Owner-Manager)没有两样，“但我可能离技术和创业源头稍微远些。”
“有时会出现令人忧虑和举步维艰的情况――要尽力保持企业的资金供应，要避免在公司治理问题上授人以柄，不断调整规章制度――这一切都是用很少的人手完成的。”当他加入Oxonica时，该公司有10名雇员，现在已有56人，其中20人来自Nanoplex。
“但好处是，这是一个非常多样化的角色，有很大的发挥空间。”他补充称，“我的很多朋友和（大型企业和大学里的）前同事不得不面对减员或缩减开支的问题。或许，我本质上就是一个化学家。我热爱制造东西，无论是产品、职位，还是新企业。”
