The major difference between early investment conferences such as I2Nano last December and the current crop of events is the huge increase in number of professional services companies attending. While large international legal firms such as Hammonds Suddards Edge in the UK and Foley Lardner in the US were among the first to spot the long-term advantages of understanding nanotechnology, there are increasing numbers of smaller players turning up. Intellectual property lawyers, recruitment companies and business development consultants at all levels, from the big international names to local players, are now circling nanotechnology.

While old nanotechnology hands may snigger at the difficulty that most of these new entrants had in defining nanotechnology, this is missing the point. There has never been a better time to start a nanotechnology company. Why? Two reasons:

  1. Access to capital Tony Perkins from Red Herring asked whether nanotechnology was going to become a bubble like the dotcom boom. The attendant hordes of venture capitalists shook their heads gravely. "No, we've learned our lesson," they said, before announcing that timescales for generating a return may be "loosened a little" in the case of nanotechnology investments. Indeed, fear of missing the boat is rising so fast that many of the less well informed investors feel that nanotechnology investments are a marketing, rather than an investment, concern. Limited partners - the people who supply the money invested by venture capitalists - are increasingly asking: "What nanotech do we have in the portfolio?"

  2. Business infrastructure Once market estimates of trillions of dollars start being accepted as a fact, and rest assured that I will be returning to this issue in some depth in the coming weeks, there is money to be made from professional services.

    Whatever stage a nanotechnology business has reached, there is a need for advisors of some type, whether they be start-up veterans who can help entrepreneurs to avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly, or the big five (or four, post-Enron) consulting companies. Lawyers are, of course, a necessary evil, whether for setting up a new company, raising capital or protecting intellectual property.

    As with investors, senior management sees the huge opportunity afforded by nanotech, and rising stars see it as a way to make their names.