Entrepreneurs say that the nanotechnology investment climate is warming up just in time to meet their growing capacity to put investors’ money to work expanding research and bringing innovations to market.

However, some of nanotechnology’s most promising concepts, like computers that replace silicon transistors with single molecules, are at least a generation away from market. And for all the spectacular properties of new materials like carbon nanotubes, no one has yet demonstrated how to make money from them. Many experts predict large multinationals will come to dominate markets for most nanoproducts long before investors in startups can get rich in a public offering.