Nanotech: A few smaller items of interest

This site has had a few recent discussions about the overlaps between nanotech and cleantech (here, and here, among others), but as always there are a few follow-up items that might be of interest to cleantech investors:

• The carbon nanotube electronics business is forecast by NanoMarkets to be a $3.6B opportunity by 2009. Among the cleantech applications described for these materials are low-power, high-sensitivity sensors (Nanomix is a good example for this).

• Charles Choi's most recent Nano World column listed what he describes as the "Ten most overlooked nano firms" -- mostly firms that have chosen to bootstrap or are family-owned instead of getting VC backing. But while the list of companies is by itself interesting, it also serves as a nice survey of the wide variety of applications -- some, but not all, cleantech -- being targeted by nanotech startups.
  

• Whether those firms are being overlooked or not, VC investments in nanotech are starting to come back. In the first quarter of this year, 12 nanotech firms raised $155M, about as much as had been raised by nanotech firms in the three previous quarters combined. There were a few big deals in there that temporarily drove a particular spike in the numbers, but it still appears to be a positive trend.