Nanotech Venture Capital Boom on the Horizon

At the end of last year, the U.S. government committed $3.7 billion in funding to a technology that few people had even heard of a few years ago. Big corporations are investing $3 billion in it this year. And venture capital firms have poured $1 billion into small startups that focus on it over the past five years.

Nanotechnology — the science of manipulating molecules and atoms — is the hottest technology to come along since the Internet. Like the Net, it offers the staggering potential to change millions of people’s lives and.....