...just as biotech came to dominate the life sciences over the past two decades, ... nano-scale convergence will become the operative strategy for corporate control of commercial food, agriculture and health in the 21st century
ETC Group, The Big Down

Big companies
Virtually all of the Fortune Global 500 companies are investing in nanotechnology research. Unlike with the development of biotechnology, big companies have been involved with nanotechnology from the start. They are both developing nanotechnologies for their own products and are using technologies developed by each other and by smaller nano-specialist companies.

Major corporate nano-developers or users include:
computers/electronics: IBM, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Phillips, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Motorola, Mitsubishi, General Electric, Microsoft
food: Kraft/Altria, Unilever, Nestle, Heinz, Sara Lee
drugs/healthcare: GlaxoSmithKline, Smith and Nephew, Merck
oil: BP, Exxon, Chevron/Texaco, Shell, Halliburton
clothing: Burlington Industries, Nike, Gap
defence/aerospace: Sandia/Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Qinetiq, Raytheon
cosmetics: L'Oreal, Body Shop, Boots
chemicals: Dupont, Degussa, Dow, Henkel, ICI
agriculture: Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer
cars/automotive: BMW, Renault, General Motors, Ford, Caterpillar

Small Companies
Nanotechnology has also spawned hundreds of small nano-specialist companies. These are often spin-out companies commercialising the results of university research. Smaller more nano- focused companies include Veeco, Nanosys, Nanophase, Altair, Nanomix, Flamel, Nanogate, Carbon Nano- Technologies, Quantum Dot Corp, Nanoproducts, Nanotex. UK based nano- companies include Oxonica, Thomas Swan and Co, Skyepharma, JR Nanotech .and QinetiQ Nanomaterials.