MIT.nano

What MIT.nano does

MIT.nano is MIT's central, open-access shared research facility for nanoscience and nanoengineering, housed in the Lisa T. Su Building (Building 12, 60 Vassar Street) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and operating since October 2018. It is a non-profit operating unit within MIT's Office of the Vice President for Research, governed by a faculty Leadership Council drawn from multiple departments, and is not affiliated with any single school. The facility comprises three core technical assets: Fab.nano, a 45,000+ sq ft ISO Class 5/6/7 (Class 100/1,000/10,000) cleanroom supporting lithography, etching, deposition, diffusion, and wet processing; Characterization.nano, an 11,000 sq ft facility with 12 specialized suites engineered for low-vibration and low-EMI nanoscale metrology; and the Immersion Lab, a dedicated environment for AR/VR prototyping and visualization. Since opening, more than 160 tools and instruments have been installed and over 700 users trained.

The facility serves four overlapping customer segments: the MIT internal campus community (students, postdocs, faculty, and staff from any department), external academic and industry users who apply through the nanousers.mit.edu portal, corporate consortium members who pay recurring dues for preferential tool rates and early access to MIT research, and hard-tech startups admitted to the START.nano program. Revenue mechanics are hybrid — recurring subscription-style consortium membership fees supplemented by usage-based fees for external and member facility access, with consortium members paying lower per-tool rates than external users. Programs layered on the core infrastructure (START.nano, STUDIO.nano, LEAP, Tool Talks, PITCH.nano, the Nano Summit, the Deep Tech Career Fair) function as both customer-acquisition channels and ecosystem-buildout vehicles.

MIT.nano is operated and institutionally controlled by Massachusetts Institute of Technology; there is no venture, private equity, or public-market ownership structure. Financial sustainability is supported by a combination of MIT institutional funding, consortium membership fees from 11+ named corporate partners (including Analog Devices, Applied Materials, IBM Research, Lam Research, Shell, NEC, SLB, NCsoft, Fujikura, Edwards, and LAB14), and external usage fees. The model is fundamentally an infrastructure-as-a-service and ecosystem-orchestration play embedded inside a major research university rather than a venture-backable technology company.

Name

MIT.nano

Legal name

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Website

https://mitnano.mit.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

MIT.nano is MIT's central open-access nanoscience research facility, operating cleanroom, characterization, and AR/VR labs in the Lisa T. Su Building. It serves MIT researchers, external users, an industry consortium, and hard-tech startups via programs such as START.nano.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Consortium Membership Fees: Corporate consortium members pay fees that support MIT.nano operations, fund equipment purchases, and seed relevant research directions. Members gain early access to MIT knowledge and technologies, recruitment opportunities, and campus presence.
2. Facility Usage Fees: External users pay rates for accessing MIT.nano toolsets. Consortium members utilize tools at lower rates than external users as a membership benefit.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

MIT.nano is MIT's open-access shared research facility providing nanoscale fabrication, characterization, and immersive-technology prototyping services. It operates three physical facilities — Fab.nano (a 45,000+ sq. ft. ISO-class cleanroom), Characterization.nano (an 11,000 sq. ft. metrology suite complex), and the Immersion Lab (AR/VR prototyping) — supported by 160+ tools and accessed through the nanousers.mit.edu portal. Revenue is generated primarily through corporate Consortium membership fees and usage-based facility access fees, with consortium members receiving preferential rates over external users.

Product overview

MIT.nano is MIT's central resource for nanoscale discovery and innovation, housed in the Lisa T. Su Building. The facility operates as a platform of interconnected services comprising three main facilities: Fab.nano (cleanroom with lithography, etching, deposition, diffusion, and wet processing capabilities), Characterization.nano (metrology and characterization with 12 specialized suites), and The Immersion Lab (AR/VR visualization and immersive technology prototyping). Supporting programs include START.nano (startup support), STUDIO.nano (prototyping), LEAP (education), and Tool Talks (technology seminars). The ecosystem is further supported by the MIT.nano Consortium of industry partners and hosts events like PITCH.nano for startup visibility.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Fab.nano: More than 45,000 sq. ft. of ISO 5, 6, 7 (class 100, 1,000, 10,000) cleanroom with capabilities spanning lithography, etching, deposition, diffusion, and wet processing.
• Characterization.nano
• The Immersion Lab
• START.nano
• STUDIO.nano
• MIT.nano Leadership Council
• MIT.nano Faculty Advocates

Products and services

• Fab.nano
• Characterization.nano
• The Immersion Lab
• Lincoln Lab Microelectronics Laboratory
• START.nano
• STUDIO.nano

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2019Founding member of MIT.nano Consortium. ADI is a provider of high-performance analog, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing solutions. Members gain early access to MIT technologies and research talent.
• Applied Materials, Inc.coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2019Sustaining member of MIT.nano Consortium. Applied Materials is a leader in materials engineering solutions supplying equipment, services, and software for semiconductor chip manufacture.
• EdwardscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEdwards specializes in vacuum system products, abatement solutions, and related services. Their products enable discovery and manufacture at the nanoscale and support various industrial processes.
• FujikuracoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSince 1885, Fujikura Group develops and manufactures power and telecommunication systems including optical fiber cables, serving electronics, energy, telecommunications, and automotive divisions.
• IBM ResearchcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the world's largest corporate research labs with over 3,000 researchers in 12 labs across six continents. IBM Research pioneers transformative technologies including AI, hybrid cloud, and quantum computing.
• LAB14coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLAB14 provides advanced manufacturing solutions as a group of successful high-tech companies with complementary products and services for nano- and microfabrication and surface analysis.
• Lam ResearchcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLam Research is an enabler of the semiconductor industry whose wafer fabrication equipment and services allow chipmakers to build smaller, faster, and better performing electronic devices.
• NC (NCsoft)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOne of the largest gaming companies in the world, creator of multiplayer online games including Lineage, AION, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars, engaging hundreds of millions of players daily.
• NEC CorporationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNEC Corporation is a global ICT services provider integrating IT and network technologies for industry, government, and individual customers through innovative software, applications, and services.
• ShellcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerShell is a global energy and petrochemical company aiming to meet growing energy needs while being economically, environmentally, and socially responsible.
• SLBcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSLB provides digital solutions and groundbreaking technologies for the global energy industry, with innovations helping industry to decarbonize.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• imec: World-leading independent nanoelectronics and digital technology R&D center. Comparable to MIT.nano as a shared nanofabrication facility serving both academic and corporate users, though imec operates at larger scale and is a dedicated independent entity rather than a university unit.

Others

• IBM Research — Albany Nanotech Complex: IBM's corporate-led semiconductor R&D consortium at Albany Nanotech. Comparable as a public-private semiconductor research consortium using shared nanofabrication infrastructure, though operated by a corporate anchor rather than a university. IBM Research is also a MIT.nano consortium member.

Direct peers

• Argonne National Laboratory — Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM): DOE Office of Science user facility providing open-access nanofabrication and characterization capabilities. Peer as another major federally funded nanoscience user facility with similar open-access and external user programs.
• Caltech Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI): Caltech's shared nanoscale research facility housing cleanroom and characterization capabilities. Direct peer as a university-administered nanofabrication and characterization facility serving cross-disciplinary research.
• Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN): Georgia Tech's shared nanofabrication user facility supporting academic and industry research. Direct peer as a shared-access university cleanroom with similar consortium/affiliate program structure.
• Brookhaven National Lab — Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN): DOE national lab user facility for nanoscience research offering open-access nanofabrication and characterization. Peer as a federally funded shared nanoscience facility serving external academic and industry users.
• Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory: UC Berkeley's shared nanofabrication facility. Direct peer as an open-access university cleanroom supporting semiconductor and nanoscale device research with similar tool mix and external user program.
• Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF): Stanford's shared open-access nanofabrication cleanroom and characterization facility. Direct comparable as a university-based shared nanofacility serving academic and external users with similar lithography, deposition, and metrology capabilities.
• Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS): Harvard's university-wide shared nanofabrication and characterization facility. Direct peer as a Cambridge-adjacent, MIT-rival university nanoscience facility with comparable open-access cleanroom model.

Regional players

• Institute of Microelectronics (IME), A*STAR Singapore: Singapore's publicly funded R&D center for semiconductor and nanoelectronics research. Peer as a shared nanofabrication facility serving industry and academic users, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/mit_nano
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCkEJWjYZDSyDtkHVkNlvPtg
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/mit-nano
• Instagraminstagram.com/mit.nano

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about MIT.nano