Nanomat, a UCD campus company, has received one of the largest equity investments in the Republic to date from a venture capital company. New venture capital fund Cross Atlantic Capital Partners has invested £2 million (€2.5 million) representing a 20 per cent stake in the company. Nanomat specialises in nanomaterial applications for automotive and electronics suppliers worldwide. The latest investment places a value on the company of £10 million. Nanomat was established in 1997 by Dr Donald Fitzmaurice, chief technology officer, Mr John Cashell, chief executive officer, and Dr Dennis Jennings, chairman.

Nanomaterials are minuscule flexible materials 100,000 times narrower than a human hair. Products currently being developed include automatically dimmable rear-view mirrors for vehicles, and shelf edge labels electronically displaying commodity prices in supermarkets.

Recently the British Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology valued the global market for nanotechnology products at more than £80 billion (€125.5 billion) by the early part of the next century.