JPK Instruments AG is a manufacturer of nanoanalytical instruments particularly based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) and generally scanning probe microscopy (SPM) essentially for academic and industrial R&D in life sciences, biosciences and soft matter applications, even for living cells – focusing on BioSPM.
With product lines based on Atomic Force Microscopy and Force Sensing Optical Tweezers JPK provides successfully solutions for super-resolution imaging and the analysis of nanoscale interaction forces of atoms and molecules.
JPK Instruments was launched in 1999 by an “entrepreneurial triple” while the three co-founders were still studying, in particular while they were performing their diploma theses, respectively. The co-founders are friends and know each other from childhood who did not want to become employees and agreed to found a firm.
Actually, they were actively searching for an appropriate opportunity and technical business idea to be pursued. Their fundamental business orientation was nanotechnology and specifically nanotools focusing on work on the molecular level – analyzing, handling, manipulating, measuring and visualizing.
JPK Instruments represents an example of a so-called “competence spin-out” which uses indispensable special competencies or/and skills, which at least one of the founders acquired at a scientific or research institution. For financing their venture JPK founders could utilize partly a very special situation.