Nikolai Loukine bounds up to Jordan Dinglasan, one of the founders of Vive Nano, as we tour their downtown lab on a cold January morning.

"Look!" He points to a vial of black slurry in his hand and slowly demonstrates a quick but must-remain-undisclosed experiment in front of us.  They both start laughing as Nikolai's eyes expand in shock. 

"This is not supposed to happen," Dinglasan tells me as Nikolai looks on in amazement. "We did not expect this at all."

Welcome to the world of nanotechnology as practiced on the 11th floor of a non-descript brown office tower at the corner of Bay and Gerrard.  It is the kind of work at the heart of Vive Nano, a firm birthed in a chemistry lab at the University of Toronto.

Nanotechnology may sound more like hype than reality, but it is part of a new wave of what can be described as "the science of the very small." Think of a billionth of a meter or, if that's too difficult to visualize, imagine yourself the size of the earth while a corresponding nanoparticle is a tennis ball. And though they're small, they can do a lot. By combining chemistry, physics and biology, the properties of an element can transform; for example, gold can change into the colour magenta while silver becomes yellow-brown.  It is a science already in use in countless new products, from sunscreens to medical diagnostics. 

Angel investor Keith Thomas was looking for new projects after selling his previous company and came across Dinglasan's work and immediately recognized an amazing opportunity.

"The technology was outstanding," remembers Thomas. "And the potential in the marketplace was huge."  Soon he was not only putting his own money into the start-up, he became its CEO.

The Vive Nano mantra - eat better, drink better, breathe better - trips easily out of Thomas.  But his belief that this technology has the potential to change how we grow our food, clean our water, and save our soil is a passion.  In fact, the two main areas of Vive Nano's focus are crop protection and removing arsenic from groundwater, both serious concerns around the world. 

Thomas believes that this is a way to find a middle ground between agriculture that is purely organic and that which uses heavy pesticides and is herbicide-dependent. Nano-particles developed for use with crops (and generally spread via a liquid spray) can result in fewer chemical by-products seeping into the soil.  Chemicals are still in use, but at a much lower level than in current applications.

Vive Nano is already receiving accolades for its clean tech approach - from a seal of approval from David Suzuki (who promises to check up on them) to awards from magazines like Canadian Business and Corporate Knights. New York-based market intelligence firm Lux Research recognizes the company as in the top 10% of reputable firms in the nanotechnology sector, opening doors for them to the main players in the chemical industry.

Its appeal is in its business model: to develop new processes and company-specific nanoparticles, then lease out their know-how to established companies who have both their own distribution networks and capability to deal with the various national regulatory hurdles that a small firm could never hope to manage.

With the initial funding coming from the federal and provincial governments, Vive Nano is part of a bid to incubate innovation-oriented companies in Toronto.  It is no coincidence that it is part of the downtown core's new tech hub established by the MaRS Discovery District, which aims to bring to market the research coming out of hospitals and universities.
 
It was the promise of free pizza at the MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 course for researchers that got Dinglasan and his early partners thinking about starting a company. They had just developed and were patenting a new method of creating nanoparticles, one that meant they were much easier to create, and critically, easier to replicate.  By 2006, the company, then called Northern Nanotechnologies, was born.

The payoff? Sixteen high-tech jobs (with more on the way) created in the city, keeping bright minds like Dinglasan, who came from the Philippines to study at U of T, here rather than taking the usual route of looking for work in the US or elsewhere.

It's a point that Thomas is particularly proud of. He sees the immense benefits of Toronto as the company's home base.   Vive Nano's second lab is just down the street at the Best Institute at U of T and Thomas wants any future development to be located on the subway line.   

"We are part of a larger community and we can take advantage of the city's diverse population," he says. 

Not only as a source of scientific know-how, but as good business practice.  For example, India has become an important market for Vive Nano - the country is actively interested in how nanotechnology can deal with many environmental issues - all made possible through networking within Toronto's well-connected South Asian community. Vive Nano sees itself as an export-oriented company as 85% of its market lies outside of Canada. 

"Impact. That's why we do what we do," says Thomas. "We come to work knowing we are making an impact. And that feels good."

Piali Roy is a Toronto based writer and book reviewer.