The deal, in which European investors took the lead, marks a significant upturn in market sentiment at this point in the business cycle.  It attracted world-class European investors including Geneva-based Vision Capital, France’s Schneider Electric, and Milan-based Net Partners. Other investors in the round included Crossbow Ventures, FirstHand Capital, Capital Valley Ventures, Greyhound Fund, AFA Private Equity Fund and PacRim Ventures, joining earlier investors AutoVision (Volkswagen AG’s corporate venturing arm) and Ariadne Capital.

NanoMuscle is well-advanced in its marketing and product development plans. The first consumer product using a NanoMuscle, Baby Bright Eyes, a children’s doll with strikingly real eye movements, is currently available in outlets such as FAO Schwartz. NanoMuscle is also working with a number of potential automotive applications, expecting to enter general use within 18 months. NanoMuscle’s miniature motors are a fraction of the weight and size of an equivalent motor, helping to reduce overall weight and provide silent movement for electrical and mechanical designers.

Rod MacGregor, CEO and co-founder of NanoMuscle, commented: “ To be truly competitive, NanoMuscle looks for partners around the world to work with our international customers in areas such as children’s toys and the automotive industry. Ariadne Capital has proven to be an important partner in furthering our global expansion”. 

Bundeep Singh Rangar, COO of Ariadne Capital, said: “We are committed to making venture capital entrepreneurial - backing smart people with smart ideas and helping them win.  You don’t get much more entrepreneurial than Rod MacGregor at NanoMuscle – a British entrepreneur with a radical vision of the future.  We’re proud that we’ve been able to raise an oversubscribed round and in so doing, unite European capital with US know-how at a particularly challenging point in the funding cycle”.

-ENDS-

NOTES FOR EDITORS

About Ariadne Capital

Founded in 2000, Ariadne Capital is a European venture capital group, which invests in early stage private and advises later stage private and public companies undergoing significant growth or change.   Ariadne focuses on companies in Enabling Technologies, Communications, Software and Life Services. 

Ariadne Capital provides its portfolio companies, as well as its strategic partners, access to its network of industry executives and investors, hands-on management and Board level assistance to implement strategic, operational and financial plans.  Ariadne Capital helps its companies access capital, secure executives, leverage innovation and generate sales.

For more information, please go to http://www.ariadnecapital.com

About NanoMuscle

Founded in 1998, privately held NanoMuscle, Inc. manufactures components that displace small electric motors in high volume markets including the children’s toy and automotive industries. The company has been financed by strategic partners around the globe including AutoVision GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler Capital Services, the financial arm of the leading automaker, and Jetta Ltd., the world’s largest manufacturer of children’s toys. NanoMuscle motors are mass manufactured by ASE, a leader in semiconductor manufacturing services.

NanoMuscle® is a registered trademark of NanoMuscle, Inc

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