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Meet the Startup NanoStruct, They Are Listening to Molecules

This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on June 3rd, 2021.


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This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.


Meet the Startup NanoStruct, they are listening to Molecules


We are working in structures the size of nanometers. The average piece of paper is about 100.000 nanometers thick.Henriette Maaß, CEO and Co-Founder NanoStruct

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The Founder

We talk to Henriette Maaß (https://www.linkedin.com/in/henriette-maa%C3%9F-608792142/), co-founder and CEO of the startup NanoStruct. During her Ph.D. in solid-state physics, she looked at the electronic state of materials. She founded NanoStruct (https://www.nanostruct.eu/en/home-english/)during her post-doc at university.

Henriette went on record here to admit that she is a Star Wars and Star Trek fan.

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The reproducibility of nanostructures is normally not good. We can re-produce them more reliable.Henriette Maaß, CEO and Co-Founder NanoStruct

The Startup

The idea of NanoStruct came when Henriette talked to her co-founder, who pursued his Ph.D. using spectroscopy as well, but another method. They are working on nanostructures like normal antennas but in nanometer sizes. The antennas function for frequencies of visible light, for which they have a reliable way to produce them over and over (which is not common for nanostructures). Their product can be used to search for contaminations like in biotech, pharma, or the food industry. You can learn more on their company website https://www.nanostruct.eu/en/home-english/

They are planning to do the production themselves since their production is neither expensive nor complex.

Don’t be scared of physic, it is actually a lot of funHenriette Maaß, CEO and Co-Founder NanoStruct

Venture Capital Funding

NanoStruct is currently running on a federal grant for transferring research results into feasible products. They are looking for similar follow-up funding, until mid-2022, when they would rely on external investors. They are currently just starting to reach out.


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The Video Interview is set to go live on Thursday, June 3rd, 2021, at 17.00 CET



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The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:


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Transcript

[0:00]Startup Red Dot IO.Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.With News interviews and Live Events,hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from Strawberry today oh you startup podcast and you to block from Germany as well as the world’s firstinternet radio station dedicated to startups and tech companies if you haven’t done already so make sure to hit the like And subscribe button and leave us the nice comment I were comingyesterday she is the CEO ofNano struck hey Henry it hi Dean hi thank you I’m doing well that is good to hear so,you are the CEO,of a company which is usually included in the stem area science technology engineering mathematics if,people ask you how did you end up there can you tell us a little bit about you.


[1:15]What did you do and for everybody just disclaimer you do have a PhD in physics so you’re very smart girl and.And I would be curious at first how your interest in physics started who I think I was always interested in physics actually I was,absolutely fascinated from by everything that had to do with space,so movies like Apollo tights in Apollo 13 in English and stuff like that so I love that when I was a little child and I started thinking about what do I have to study.


[1:57]What what do I have to study to do this did you watch Star Wars or Star Trek both I’m one of the few people who do like both so I yeah.Awesome welcome to geek radio so you decide to study Physics so,you studied physics and you went for PhD and you explain to you guys like me who only have a business degree what you actually did or is it too far out to explain it to the monkeys like me I can try to,explain it in a really easy way,so in my PhD thesis I’ve worked in solid state physics so it has this everything that has to do with things that are in a solid state as the name says and what I did was a certain spectroscopy method which is called photoelectron spectroscopy,what you can do with this is looking at the electronic properties of these materials.And so in the most easy way this means distinguishing between a metal and insulator or a semiconductor that’s the very easiest part.


[3:05]Of course there are much more intriguing properties concerning the electronic state of a material.And in that’s where the difficult physics starts there are some.Yeah say Quantum properties of the electronic states which I took a look at which is the electron spin.Yeah and basically there are some fascinating materials that have that have a very special.Spin property intrinsic spin property and this is what I was looking at I think if I go deeper it becomes too complex maybe for this.


[3:43]The general thing that I did was looking at electronic States in solid materials and surfaces,talking about spin in electrons basically that’s just a characteristic and nobody’s sure if an electron is really turning anyway,one way or not allowed something like this it is just an agreement between physicists,if it’s behaving like this it has a spin-off X if it’s behaving like this it has a spin of why so basically we don’t know which way the electrons are spinning right.Exactly it’s not not really a spinning movement it’s more and angular momentum intrinsic angular momentum so you cannot.If you think of an electron which actually spins in One Direction this is this is.


[4:34]100% correct so as you said it’s.Quantum property where we don’t really know whether the action is spinning in one or the other direction but where it describes certain behaviors which which come with this angular momentum.And now all my physics teachers can die in peace I learned something awesome but,let us drag on a little bit because you then State at a university as a postdoc,and you also started a company nanostrcut,working in nanostructures can you first tell us a little bit because the audience here is basically composed of people who are interested.In startups,what did drive you from Star Trek and Star Wars geek which we all really like to become a Founder with what was like the moment our I want to do that.


[5:42]I think that’s actually quite a long time that I.


[5:47]Yeah I was sure that I would love to do my own thing start my own company yeah this is just the way of working with setting my own goals.Organizing my projects checked the way I want them.To work out and stuff like that this is something I already did burnt during my PhD I had a lot of freedom to plan everything by myself and to basically also set goals by myself so this is a way of working which.Yeah which I definitely like and enjoy and where a function very well and so for me it was.


[6:26]During the day at the end of my PhD thesis it was already clear to me that at some point starting something for myself,would be an option and would be something that I would like to do,the only thing that was missing was creativity very good idea the inventive mind its head like thisand fortunately I have a very good friend and it grows who is a very inventive person and to during his Ph.D,it’s a very King risks nanostructures.And basically the optical properties of these nanostructures and he realized that what he was doing is actually solving a problem in a certain spectroscopy method,different spectroscopy method than the one I did during my PhD thesis but still,from the principles also spectroscopy again and there what he did is actually solving an issue and that is when he started thinking about founding his own company and since we are good friends I.Of course heard about this I talked to him about this and it didn’t take a lot of convincing to.For me to join him and yeah now we are co-founders together with two other guys and have this company.


[7:46]For everybody who’s who is just a little bit confused what spectroscopy is it’s a study of interaction,between matter and electromagnetic radiation as a function of the wavelength of frequencyor color of the radiation for everybody who wants to know more they can go down here in the show notes there’s an article on Wikipedia from which entrance threat.

[8:15]Actually,it was the only way I could find something out about this so basically we’re but actually actually Wikipedia is a good place to look for a very principled explanation for many different physical things so.


[8:33]Mostly the things you find in Wikipedia are correct and very often it’s put in a very easy way that it’s possible to understand in some cases it’s also,already very deep and difficult and maybe it’s too much but especially spectroscopy and principal,you will find a lot of information maybe from my site to explain a little bit what this spectroscopy method is which we are working with,so basically what we are doing is how the spectroscopy method works is you have a material some substance and you shine laser light on the substance.And because you do this the the molecules inside the substance start to vibrate.Forces assist this means the electronic States change,for non physicists you could imagine it’s similar to a court of guitar so you’re if you if you hit the court it starts to vibrate and it makes a certain sound so also this.Yeah right right if the Bell is bigger the sound will change if the court of guitar is longer the sound will change so also for this,molecules depending on on the exact point exact properties how many so how the atoms in the molecules are bound to each other stuff like this,this change is basically the vibrational properties and then when you.

[9:56]Look at the light that is basically coming back from the molecule then you have a like a fingerprint of the.


[10:06]Molecules which are in the substance so you can find out which.Material is in a certain substance by this type of spectroscopy,so this is basically how it works I had to smile when you just explain this I had an alternative title for our interview with Nano structure you’re listening to molecules,correct this is actually a very good way to put it.Awesome now we have tidal great this love this interview and,basically my understanding is that also fraunhofer a German physicist did this and basically he found that the that the molecules light is coming from,leave some traces so the light has some traces of the molecules it comes from so that’s why how we can know what,very very distant stars are composed of basically you just easily said dissect the light with the prism right.


[11:14]Exactly this is.Basically what you what you do you actually this is the lightest prison is exactly the right comparison your.Looking at the different colors of the light and that comes out of the molecule and bye,seeing at which colors to molecule shines you know which what molecule it is this is also very good comparison,now my physics teacher cannot only die in peace they can die happy that is really great let us now get into,what you guys are actually doing,in the company with this because when you look at your guys website which is of course linked down here in the show notes,he’s see you talk about precise reproductive little nanostructures can can we first get into,what is an Anna structure what is the problem now and how you guys make it just awesome.


[12:19]So nanostructures nanocoating from nanometers it’s basically a size,similar to meters just smaller the general piece of paper I would say it’s about 100,000 nanometers thick so now you can,imagine how small nanometers are and structures that we do are basically small antennas.Santana’s have length of few hundreds of nanometers and because they are so small they function not for radio waves which the antennas that you know from your car from your cell phone.They function for radio waves which have length of meters up to kilometers but our antennas are incredibly small though they function for frequencies or wavelengths,which are the order of visible light and this is basically the frequencies at which these molecules shine.And similar to radio waves on on the roof or on in the car the attendance on the roof or or in the car also the small antennas can.


[13:32]Emits and can emit light and they can basically strengthen the thick nails so.When you use this Raman spectroscopy and you look at the signal without the nanostructures without out these antennas then.The signal would be very low to get a strong signal you use these antennas to enhance the circular signal and there are enhancement possible.Have two up two million fold so this is a very.


[14:05]Incredible enhancement of such thickness and this is in general used in so-called surface-enhanced spectroscopy.And the special thing about our nanostructures compared to other such.Nano structure tips that’s call it or let’s call it sends or chips for Raman spectroscopy or general they are called Sir substrates this is basically the common name for this product,very often this product shows a very bad reproducibility the problem is why this is the case is that.The way the nanostructures are fabricated is very random it’s for example you use.Colloidal material so basically basically nanoparticles in a solution you put them on the substrate and they randomly arranged and form a random nanostructure in our case what we are doing is,we determined we we have deterministic nanostructures where we know from one of our product to the next the structures that you find on the substrate are exactly the same,so we have a very high reproducible from one subject to the next this is important because.If we again look at the enhancement that we get in the spectroscopy method of course it’s not very helpful if you would one measurement.


[15:32]Get one enhancement with the next measurement and get completely different signal so basically you want to be sure.You always get the same result in your measurements this is something to do with reliability of these substrates.In the end it’s basically that so our substrates are our Nano structures on the substrates recessive traits are very reliable.

[16:00]It does kind of reminds me basicallyit’s like making a cake right you have the surface you have the cake and you spread over something like a cream cream cheese or something over it but you do it on a very tiny and very precise level.Is that exactly something exactly oh we have a very precise recipe and not only do it by.Very random shaking some flower inside to the cake and stuff like that but we have a very precise yeah structure for how to build this.This cake so it will taste the same every time that is great and what where are actually the applications of the structures you are working with.


[16:51]So applications are everywhere first of all what where the spectroscopy method is already used and where a reliability is important and this is for example in.In the chemical industry in the biological industry so Raman spectroscopy is very interesting for,biological measurements because it works with,water which not every every of these type of method us so you can work my cells for example.So biological.Yeah Technologies this is this is very important and everywhere where you want to know a certain amount whether a certain materials inside a substance inside a sample there Raman spectroscopy becomes interesting.Pharmaceutical products does this also something where this becomes important.To give an example you develop new medication and you want to know whether there are any.


[17:59]Substance inside that might be harmful and you want to know this we can use the method you want to know this reliably so you need a very good source of stress.But this is Fair Isle what substrate can be used for.So if I understood it right you and Abel better analytics and better machines for example for biology and pharmacy.


[18:27]For example yes there are actually many different applications so any anywhere.


[18:37]It is important to know whether a certain substance is inside the material.Food industry is another example so if you want to look for harmful substances inside folder you want to make sure.There is there’s nothing inside this is also a place where this method works and where you need reliability and this is also where we can.Place our substrates so I can think of many many many different different examples so this is,yeah it’s a very strong method actually sebastiao a little bit here would it be possible to basically have a sensor,including your technology at the end of a production queue for example let’s take what cake and you can make sure that there is no machine oil and there’s no metal Parts in it.Principal yes so the method could be so so usually you would have.Basically the spectroscope which you would put at the end of that production line for example there you could for example run.A liquid.


[19:55]Yeah I guess you would have to actually take a sample and put it on the substrate and do this by hand so the automatization is in principle possible but not at our current status and say.



[20:07]So another example which we are actually thinking about is the,development of certain medications I think I mentioned it before where the speed of the development process could be,made much much much faster with when using Raman spectroscopy so.In numbers for example talking about biological medical medication in this Biologicals usually take a year to develop a new,pop new type,and by using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy you could shorten this by 75% and therefore also shortened the costs of course,also the costs are pretty high and the problem is that the sir substrates that are used are not reliable enough.This means this the method itself cannot used and up to now this was the problem but now with our.Becomes possible to actually have reliable enough.Measurements to actually reduce time and cost of such a medication development by 75% so this is actually a very very nice,example where our product can can be of tremendous help.


[21:33]Um another more let’s say.


[21:39]Yeah currently very interesting thing as as of course.Detecting virus so this is also possible instrument spectroscopy and this is also something there you you need a certain reliability to actually make sure that a test for virus or a antibody,is is correct so this is also somewhere where we are looking at whether we can apply our substrates.That sounds pretty interesting getting a little bit away from the virus carry viruses into the more,other area how you guys are currently Finance how do you afford all the research all the eventual production and one more question are you,guys actually going to like physically,make production facilities or you working with contractors and basically everything you guys are is a lot of smart people with lot of high-end computers in the room.


[22:38]So maybe your second question first you’re planning on doing basically everything in the house we have a we have the the this very.Nice part about our product is that the production itself is not very complex.


[22:59]And not very expensive so.This is quite nice and we can do it ourselves maybe don’t need a huge space for this so this is something we can keep by ourselves completely as at least for the.Let’s say for the starting.Time concerning our funding we are currently funded by an exist transfer of research would be the English translation I would say,this is a funding from the German state which basically funds research projects that aim at developed developing a certain product and starting a company.And in this funding,actually the starting of a company is definitely the goal so.


[23:50]Basically there is a second funding which we might get after.This this exist.Transfer of research finishes and therefore we are funded by this until it’s a middle of next year,from that point on we will need some external funding and we are actually currently starting to get in contact with semesters that sounds pretty interesting every,investor would like to know more they can go down here in the show notes and reach out to you guys there is of course the company website as well as your LinkedIn profile LinkedIn thereas well as some Vicky pedia articles for everybody who’s like me and doesn’t understand a lot,grasped the basic principles as you say it’s good for the basic principles Henrietta.


[24:50]Don’t be scared of physics it’s actually much fun awesome called love it.Thank you very much it was a pleasure having you here best of luck and hope to have you back in some time and actually do not update on you guys and how you’re changing the world.


[25:10]No thank you it was pleasure talking to you pleasure was all mine if you are a professional looking at the European startup scene Germany is a place you cannot miss.


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[25:31]Most likely you have never heard or read anything only startups before in English but you will in the future be ahead of the curve And subscribe to start up rad dot ew.


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