If the excitement at New York's NanoBusiness Conference is any guide, future historians will declare early 2003 to be nanotechnology's tipping point, the pivot on which the industry slid from "not quite ready" to "raring to go."

In a little less than a year since the last conference, major corporations like General Electric and the various remains of Bell Labs have formed, increased funding for or spun off dedicated nanotech units. Though the venture capital community has shrunk back to mid-1990s levels of funding, the big venture-capital players like Venrock, Polaris and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers are all investing what money they have in nanotech.

"It's not a fad. It's integral to technology companies' R&D pipeline, and the sophisticated investors know that," said Josh Wolfe, a co-founder and Managing Partner of Lux Capital focusing on investments in nanotechnology.

Even the government is getting in on the nano action. Earlier this year, President Bush's 2004 budget increased funding for the National Nanotechnology Initiative by about 9.5 percent, to $847 million. And just last week, the House passed a nanotech funding bill, allocating $2.36 billion in research money over the next three years to NASA, the National Science Foundation, the EPA and the Departments of Energy and Commerce.

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