(FORTUNE Small Business) – This year, as you might imagine, our idea champs are technology innovators who have commercialized a service or product that promises to make an explosive impact on its industry niche. To find these mavericks, we surveyed hundreds of business incubators, research labs, venture capitalists, and universities. It's not surprising that two-thirds of the winners are e-pioneers flush with cash from VCs. Although most are startups, many have already secured strategic partners to catapult their companies into the marketplace. They range from a fledgling Website that lets cybersurfers design their own mutual fund to an online B2B e-procurement site. Most of the companies are nestled in entrepreneurial hot zones such as Silicon Valley, Boston's Route 128, and New York City's Silicon Alley. But a few have cropped up in other pockets, such as the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. The innovators that aren't involved in the Internet have developed breakthroughs in other sectors ranging from DNA testing to factory automation. These tinkerers have varied backgrounds: an Alaskan masonry contractor (go figure), Stanford graduates (where else?), and a former commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission (what would you expect?). Their tales of true grit are inspirational. Meet all of them on the following pages.

Align Technology NO MORE BRACES

Say cheese!" Now there's a phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of the dentally challenged. But if the folks at Align Technology in Sunnyvale, Calif., have their way, there could be droves of adults happy to smile on command.

Align founders and 1997 Stanford University Business School grads Zia Chishti, 30, and Kelsey Wirth, 29, have pioneered an invisible alternative to the tin-grin metal braces many of us endured in our youth: a clear, removable aligner--molded to perfection, thanks to 3-D graphics--that snaps right over teeth. (It works only on adults, but that's a pretty big market.)

Chishti, who had experienced the misery of wearing braces as a young adult, got the idea while attending Stanford. He and a group of student engineers developed software that would allow a technician to scan the mold of a person's teeth using 3-D computer graphics and to prepare a series of finely calibrated aligners according to those specifications. Patients wear a series of aligners in sequence over the course of their treatment, which could take six months to two years. Each aligner is designed to shift the teeth incrementally, so the change is gradual.

Align raised $32 million from such investors as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and introduced its technology, Invisalign, to the orthodontics community last May. Sales are expected to top $15 million by year-end.

Perfecting your pearly whites using Invisalign doesn't come cheap: The company's aligners run about twice the cost of conventional braces. But Wirth believes the convenience of the new braces will help boost sales.

AppCity TOSS YOUR SOFTWARE

Web-based applications--software programs that reside on a Website--are all the rage. Look around, and you'll find a Web-based version of anything you use on your desktop. The problem: These software services don't talk to each other, so data in a Web accounting program can't be put in a Web-based spreadsheet to create a report. Enter AppCity, a five-month-old company launched by Mark Frankel, 42, and Mark Juviler, 35.

AppCity.com, its Website, is a collection of hundreds of free, ad-supported applications, from salesforce automation tools to a financial program. Its InfoApps are Web-based databases of information that you can create and customize. Everything works within an AppCity browser (a free download) that lets you view and interact with applications much as you would with a Windows-based application on your desktop, with drop-down menus and quick-loading updates.

So far, the two are backed by $2.5 million in angel funding from Capital M Group, Dorchester Capital Group, and Gargoyle Investment Partners. The team's company, AppCity Corp., based in New York City, is seeking a first round of venture funding. Revenues? The plan is to make money through advertising, transactions made on the site through its ShoppingApps, and by tailoring its service for corporations.

Authentica VIRTUAL RETRIEVER

You've just e-mailed some highly sensitive documents to a potential merger partner. A week later, the deal falls through, and your erstwhile partner won't return the data. You're screwed. Or maybe not, thanks to our heroes, Authentica of Waltham, Mass. This startup is building a suite of products that let you reel in those electronic documents--files, e-mails, even Web pages--as if you were ripping them out of that double-dealing weasel's hands yourself.

Authentica's technology was unveiled in the first of these products, PageVault, released in April of last year, followed by WebVault this March. MailVault, the third version, is expected in May.

Here's how it works: Putting a file into one of Authentica's vaults effectively ties it with an invisible piece of wire that the sender holds on to. You can send the file to anyone, but that person needs a free viewer to read it. To see the document, the recipient has to be connected to the Internet. At all times, the document viewer is communicating with Authentica's servers, which contain all the information about what rights the sender has given the recipient (print, copy, and so forth). The sender can change the rights any time, thereby yanking that document back.

All of Authentica's products work together seamlessly, so it's the same process to protect a Word document as it is to protect an e-mail. That gives Authentica a big edge over competitors--Alchemedia, Disappearing Inc., and Tumbleweed--which offer similar products in each sector of Web-page, e-mail, and document protection.

Dr. David Pensak, 52, Authentica's founder, thought this up while working as a chief scientist at Du Pont. He funded early development himself, then got $1 million in seed funding from Greylock and North Bridge Venture Partners to produce PageVault. Afterward, Pensak and the VCs hired Lance Urbas, 47, to be CEO and commercialize the idea.

In May 1999, the 65-employee company secured $9 million in additional funding from the original VCs and Norwest Venture Capital. The customer list already includes Merck and Quality Letters of Credit. Authentica sells the products direct for $50 to $200 a user, depending on the volume discount. They can also be rented from application service providers.

B2Emarkets E-PROCUREMENT

It's safe to say that Orville Bailey practically invented e-procurement. The technology bug bit the 37-year-old in the early 1990s, when he was working at GE figuring out how the company's buyers could get the best deals from suppliers over the nascent Internet. Because GE's bureaucrats weren't Web savvy, Bailey finally surrendered to his inner entrepreneur.

In 1999 he founded B2Emarkets, an online marketplace for do-it-yourself, global corporate buyer-subscribers. Through B2Emarkets, corporate buyers find new suppliers of everything from I-beams to pencils and negotiate private, low-ball deals with them. B2Emarkets also handles the rest of the transaction, from negotiations through fulfillment and payment.

B2E differs from rival Freemarkets.com (an online auction and consulting service for corporate purchasing managers) by allowing users to negotiate the terms of the deals themselves, says Bailey. Backed by such strategic partners as Andersen Consulting and Banc Boston, Bailey says he has already nailed three giant clients (he won't disclose names) that typically buy $500 million worth of stuff a year. B2Emarkets, based in Rockville, Md., charges subscribers $15,000 to $30,000 monthly and aims to nab at least 12 big clients annually. You do the math.

Chromatics Color Sciences TESTING FOR JAUNDICE

Motherly concern prompted Darby McFarlene, 55, a former Ford model and color-technology specialist, to spend years developing a testing device for babies who have jaundice. That's the condition that results when a person's liver cannot process recycled blood cells. (Her daughter, Scarlett, was born prematurely with severe jaundice.) McFarlene's new monitor, the Tlc BiliTest, renders obsolete the painful blood test that has had 60% of the nation's newborns squealing in hospital nurseries for decades.

McFarlene's handheld device, which looks like a small camcorder, is noninvasive and pain-free. It uses photoelectric-diode color-science technology that even Star Trek's Bones would appreciate. Here's how: The device flashes a light on the skin and performs color measurement to gauge the level of bilirubin--an insoluble pigment in the blood that is a byproduct of jaundice--reflected in the yellowish hue of the skin.

Approved by the Food and Drug Administration and launched in June, the new monitor costs about $3,000. But it allows technicians to color-scan patients and get test results in minutes for a fraction of the cost of a blood test. Some 100 hospitals, including New York City's Mt. Sinai Medical Center, have purchased the BiliTest.

How does this make McFarlene feel? Well positioned, considering the market for the product is about $80 million and her New York company, Chromatics Color Sciences, has secured a distribution agreement with Datex-Ohmeda, the leading U.S. incubator manufacturer. But she's not sitting on her laurels. She continues to work with scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Stanford University to develop more applications for the technology.

Folio[fn] DO-IT-YOURSELF FUND

Who better than a former SEC commissioner to show you how to customize your own mutual fund? Steven Wallman, who spent three years at the SEC spearheading the introduction of online trading, has started an online service called Folio [fn] (www.foliofn.com).

The service lets investors marry the diversification benefits of a mutual fund with the extra oomph of investors' own stock picks. For about $25 per month, customers can choose, for example, to put $2,000 into Folio[fn]'s aggressive fund of technology stocks, shake it up by pulling out a few shares of Microsoft and adding AOL. Enjoy the show as the portfolio automatically rebalances.

Backed with more than $75 million from Silicon Valley VC powerhouse the Mayfield Fund and Internet service provider PSINet Inc., the company, based in Vienna, Va., "is definitely a David versus Goliath play" in taking on the mutual fund industry, admits chairman and CEO Wallman, 46. And if a power outage shuts down his servers or customers yawn, he might wind up working in his old gig as a securities lawyer. Nevertheless, Wallman has the vision thing ("We want to change the investing world," he says) and several additional online products in the works. Move over, Mr. Schwab.

FusionOne STAYING IN SYNC

Synchronization technology has been around for several years, letting users take two devices, such as a PC and a PalmPilot, and match up the data. Rick Onyon, 35, who started his tech career as a software engineer and later became CEO of Chili Pepper Software, launched FusionOne with a much more dramatic goal: Create a single, secure digital vault for all of a person's data--which sits on a server--that can be retrieved from any source, including a cell phone, home or office PC, or Palm.

FusionOne lets you sync up your data effortlessly. This works by virtue of a small software agent that sits on any device from a PC to an Internet phone, watches for changes, and sends them to FusionOne's servers. You then retrieve those changes any time you're online.

The technology works for traditional sync fodder such as address books and calendars but will also support specific pieces of Web content, like airline itineraries. The software, introduced in January, is available from fusionOne.com. It is free, although a premium service of $9.95 a month has no advertisements and offers more storage.

Onyon launched his San Jose company in 1998, funded with $10 million in VC cash from Eldorado Ventures, Nokia, and 3Com. The corporate strategic investors are helping to distribute FusionOne's software on every Palm device and Nokia cell phone, giving it a big head start over potential competitors.

Global Med Technologies CLOSE THE BLOOD BANK

Blood has a shelf life of only 42 days. That's one reason why many of the nation's blood banks are always teetering on the edge of crisis. Managed by hospitals and weighted with government regulation, blood banks are run like little fiefdoms, rarely sharing information or supplies with other banks. The result? Some banks throw away fresh blood while others desperately plead for donations.

Dr. Michael I. Ruxin has wanted to improve the antiquated blood-supply system ever since he ran two hospital emergency rooms back in the 1970s. His Global Med Technologies in Lakewood, Colo., just might do it with a pair of software products called SafeTrace. Introduced last year, SafeTrace links hospitals and donor centers in an online network that allows them to share blood supplies quicker, easier, and at less cost.

The SafeTrace system works by shifting blood inventories from hospitals to a donor center, which serves as a supply depot. Hospitals in the network can order blood for patients electronically over the Internet. SafeTrace won final approval from the FDA in 1999.

"Hospitals will no longer have to keep large inventories of blood," says CEO Ruxin. "That will lower the cost of an average transfusion by 10%."

Global Med developed SafeTrace after raising $8 million in an initial public offering in 1997. It has sold the product to 22 hospitals, including a ten-hospital network in Pittsburgh. Momentum is growing. Johnson & Johnson has agreed to sell the software. Still, Global Med has yet to turn a profit. In fact, last year the company posted losses of $7.5 million on sales of $5.5 million. But Ruxin, 54, says Global Med will break even this year. "We've got the first vein-to-vein software on the market," the doctor says. "Hospitals can't afford to ignore this."

Idaho Technology PORTABLE DNA LAB

Germs, not guns, may be the weapons of the future. If so, the nation's first line of defense could be a device born in the biochemistry lab at the University of Utah.

Dr. Carl Wittwer, 45, a biochemistry researcher, and Kirk Ririe, 41, one of his former students, have created a rugged, portable lab that can be used by soldiers in the field to identify biological weapons such as anthrax. The $55,000 device is only about the size of hefty suitcase, but it's so sophisticated it can identify the deadly DNA in minutes. In contrast, conventional tests take days in a specialized lab.

The two biochemists have founded a company to sell the portable lab, Idaho Technology of Salt Lake City. Its first customer was the U.S. Air Force, which has been conducting tests with the device for two years.

Meanwhile, the duo is eyeing another battlefield: the food factory. Their device can be used to identify bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella. Idaho Technology hopes to persuade food manufacturers to use the portable lab to detect tainted food before it hits grocery shelves. Making hot dogs safe for the masses?

InCert Software BUG BUSTERS

For years, busy e-commerce sites such as eBay have wrestled with the problem of online crashes and are often unable to pinpoint the cause of these virtual disasters. MIT professor Anant Agarwal, 40, and Alain Hanover, 51, former CEO of Viewlogic, believe they have a solution.

Their two-year-old company, InCert Software, has devised Traceback (akin to a jet's black box), a software agent that resides in applications' production code and reports back about how the software is running.

The product lets software developers record the events that precede a crash so they can solve them more quickly. It was released last summer for mainframe applications and has already attracted customers including Fidelity and Schwab. InCert also plans to have versions of its software for the platforms that run most Websites--Linux, Microsoft, and Solaris--by year-end.

The price tag is high: $100,000 for the mainframe software. Backed by $9 million in VC from firms such as Bessemer Venture Partners, InCert, based in Cambridge, Mass., expects sales of $5 million in 2000.

Lydstrom SongBank DIGITAL JUKEBOX

Here's one for all you audiophiles: What do get when you cross a PC with a CD player? A Lydstrom SongBank MZ3-7000. It's a new kind of home stereo component that allows you to store hundreds of CDs (or 350 hours of music) digitally and then--using a handheld, touchscreen remote control--play any song or album in any order you wish. It'll even let you play as many as three different tunes simultaneously on separate speakers. Want to spend an evening listening only to songs with "love" in the title? This personalized jukebox can do that too.

The SongBank is the brainchild of Rahul Shah, 29, a former management consultant, and Ashwin Kochiyil Philips, 31, a former software engineer at Bell Labs. Friends since sixth grade, the two teamed up and started Lydstrom in Boston in March 1998, after Philips, a self-described music nut and tinkerer, cobbled together a crude version of the machine in his parents' garage.

The new machine is simple to use: Just pop in the CD, and the software records the identifying data of each track and artist while it compresses the information digitally. Users can store an entire library of music. And because the wireless handheld touchscreen doesn't use infrared light like a television remote control, it can be used from anywhere in the house.

Revlon CEO Ron Perlman likes the SongBank so much that his venture capital firm, McAndrews & Forbes of New York City, invested $2 million in Lydstrom in January. That's because the worldwide market for CD players is $5 billion, and American music lovers currently snap up nearly 40 million of them each year.

Mass production has just begun. Since the SongBank (which retails for $600) was recently featured on WebRiot, MTV's hot teen game show, advance orders have been multiplying on Lydstrom's Website.

Makeover Networks NET STYLIST

Hey girls, if the only thing standing between you and that new Rene Russo haircut is nerve, here's one for you. Makeover Networks, a one-year-old interactive beauty and makeover company in San Mateo, Calif., is launching a site called www.makeoverstudio.com. The free Internet service allows you to upload your own digital photo and then experiment with thousands of the latest styles and colors without touching a lock.

Same goes for makeup. Hundreds of lipsticks, shadows, and foundations can be "tried on" and "removed" instantly--no tissues, no clammy cold cream. Like what you see? Simply click on the product, then buy it online from the participating merchant.

The service was created by Lori Von Rueden, a former marketing director at Sega Soft who pioneered the Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover, an off-the-shelf software product (store sales topped $40 million in its first year). As the beauty business began to migrate online, the 40-year-old realized that the wildly successful concept was an e-commerce business waiting to happen. And she figured it had licensing potential, because cosmetics companies could use it on their sites. In exchange, Makeover Networks would receive a percentage of online sales.

To refine her offline technology, Von Rueden forged a strategic alliance with PictureWorks, which developed proprietary facial-feature-recognition technology for the site in return for a minority stake. The technology lets a user point to the image of her own lips, for instance, and "apply" a lipstick perfectly with a click of the mouse--no drawing or adjusting required.

Internet investors believe the business plan has promise in the $70 billion beauty biz. To date, the company has raised more than $3 million from angel investors and venture capital firms, including Draper Richards and Venture Management Associates.

NetVendor ONLINE SURPLUS BIN

Everyone knows that more and more B2B online marketplaces are hanging their cybershingles. But one newcomer that has attracted nearly $70 million in venture capital from the likes of Internet Capital Group stands out from the crowd: NetVendor, a one-year-old Atlanta startup founded by Sean McCloskey, 32. The service not only simplifies trade in the highly fragmented "dirty fingernail" industries (auto parts, electronics, and industry components), but it has also created a new online marketplace, SurplusBIN.com, where industries can unload surplus inventory.

Disposing of excess inventory (a multibillion-dollar business annually) is currently done through industry-specific brokers over the phone or by fax, which can be time-consuming and costly. With NetVendor, the seller posts inventory on the site, and buyers search the digital aisles to find what they need. The buyer hits a buy button, which connects the two parties so they can finish the sale privately offline. Afterward, the seller pays the site a 5% commission fee. It's that easy.

So far, NetVendor has 500 registered buyers and sellers. The site posts 13,000 items, worth $12 million. Subscriptions for clients, which include Eaton and Starlinear, range from $7,000 to $15,000 a month depending on usage.

The reason for NetVendor's impressive following is its distribution technology. Along with IBM, it is marketing a software package called E.MBRACE, which ties users not only to its online surplus bin but also to private customers and other online trading exchanges.

NeuroMetrix STRESS TESTER

NeuroMetrix, a private medical-engineering firm based in Cambridge, Mass., recently introduced a portable handheld device, NC-stat, that can help companies identify workers at risk for carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive-stress injuries. The device can detect even slight damage to nerves in minutes. Using sensors attached to the patient's skin, NC-stat measures electrical currents as they course along nerves.

Compact, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive at $1,000, the device can be operated by primary-care physicians and nurses. HMOs are NeuroMetrix's biggest customers, but the company is getting hundreds of orders from more than a dozen FORTUNE 500 companies, including tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, says Dr. Shai Gozani, 35, a neurobiologist and CEO of NeuroMetrix.

OneCore.com VIRTUAL CASH HANDLER

It might seem futuristic to forgo a CFO for an EFO (electronic financial officer), but many small business owners, tired of tedious financial paperwork, are happy to dole out the drudgery of everything from payroll and bill payment to a one-stop, online financial-services shop.

While such virtual commercial-finance companies are not unique, OneCore.com offers a rare level of services to the little guy. The brainchild of 41-year-old chairman Barry Star (creator of Fidelity's Online Xpress), the site helps customers manage and earn interest on cash, pay bills, write checks, process payroll, and manage 401(k) retirement plans--all online.

The cost for such convenience is generally less than what banks charge but varies according to what users get a la carte. The basic service is $25 a month, which allows a small business to have an online interest-bearing account and run cash-flow reports.

The Bedford, Mass., company must be doing something right. Since it launched last August, it has attracted impressive partners such as American Express, BHC Securities, Earthlink, Peachtree, PNC Bank, and Scudder Kemper Investments. It has also attracted $40 million in venture capital money from Century Capital Management, CMGI's @Ventures, Merrill Lynch, and Paine Webber.

Outlast Technologies SPACE-AGE FABRIC

What do you get when a space-age idea lands in the laps of winter sports fanatics? A material that regulates body heat and makes goose down jackets a collectible for vintage clothes enthusiasts.

This material, called Outlast, blends with or can coat textiles to make a fabric that regulates body heat. Here's how it works: When the body becomes hot, the patented material (activated by a heat conductor called paraffin in microcapsulates) absorbs the surface heat. As the body becomes cooler, the fabric recycles the heat back to the body to maintain a comfortable skin temperature.

The seeds for this idea were born at Triangle Research and Development Corp., an R&D firm that--fittingly--had been subcontracted by NASA to develop gloves for astronauts. Two entrepreneurs with an eye on cold-weather sports, Ed Payne, 53, and Bernie Perry, 42, got wind of Triangle's research, and they realized how valuable temperature-regulation fabrics could be for the $60 billion outdoor-apparel industry. It took them eight years and $10 million in angel financing to perfect the breakthrough technology.

Since introducing the product worldwide, Outlast Technologies of Boulder, Colo., has signed more than 150 apparel and sporting-goods companies--including Eddie Bauer, Benetton, Hugo Boss, and Nordica. Their licensing agreements with Outlast let them incorporate its technology into their garments. Thanks to the deals, Outlast president and CEO Jonathan Erb is projecting revenues of $50 million by 2001, up from $1 million last year.

PayPal.com YOU'VE GOT MONEY!

The Internet is littered with efforts to create an Internet currency--beenz, flooz, CyberCash, to name a few. Peter Thiel, 32, has taken a different approach by creating a service called PayPal.com, which allows users to send real money by e-mail.

The need for such a money handler is undeniable. Every day, millions of items are bought and sold online at person-to-person auction sites like eBay, and the predominant payment system is old-fashioned money orders. PayPal.com lets cybershoppers pay right away. It has made rapid inroads into this market since its October 1999 product debut. About 8% of all eBay auctions are now paid for using the service, making it easier for winning bidders to get their quarry more quickly.

PayPal.com didn't start with such lofty plans. Thiel's team, which launched the company in Palo Alto, Calif., in December 1998, started with only vague notions of doing something with finance, PalmPilots, and security. These ideas morphed into a plan for money encryption on the Palm and then back to the Internet. The key for Thiel and his friends from Stanford: Good old green U.S. dollars still work pretty well, and a new Internet funny money wasn't needed. Users put money from a credit card or bank account into a PayPal.com account, and recipients choose to get a check or a credit to a bank account or credit card. Users can also download money to a PalmPilot. The company plans a cell-phone version later this year.

PayPal.com's growth is triggered by what's known as viral marketing. Every PayPal user is one of the company's chief marketers. That's because new recipients of money through PayPal.com become the next wave of new customers; they have to go to PayPal.com to get paid, after all. The product's usage literally spreads like a virus.

The company will need this growth scheme--competitors such as eCash and PayMe.com now offer similar services. But PayPal.com has a huge head start, with an expected one million customers in April and five million by the end of the year.

PayPal.com now makes money only off of the float when money sits in users' accounts. But it plans to expand into a full array of financial services like bill payment and credit cards. PayPal.com got a jolt of Internet speed thanks to a merger with online bank X.com in March. The 68-employee company (premerger) has raised $28 million in two venture rounds with Goldman Sachs, Idealab Capital Partners, and Nokia Ventures.

PentaWall REINVENTING THE WALL

According to John Spakousky, the only thing slower to change than a chilly Alaskan winter is a core concept in the masonry industry. That's why this 46-year-old president of PentaWall Corp. was reluctant to pursue an idea he'd been toying with for many years.

Spakousky has been a masonry contractor based in Anchorage since 1984 and is quite aware of how tough northern winds can rip through buildings. Now he has devised a new way to build walls so they're completely impervious to the elements--at $15 to $25 less per square foot than most conventional composite wall systems.

He calls his new technology the Pentstar CMFU (Concrete Masonry Form Unit) building system, which is actually a piece of plastic that fits between two block faces, dividing the interior of a wall into two segmented cavities. This allows for a layer of insulation to be added alongside a layer of grout, stopping air and moisture from permeating one of his buildings' walls.

The Pentstar CMFU was inspired in 1994 when Spakousky noticed that for the first time in 25 years slow changes were taking place in the way bricks and blocks were built. New building systems--insulated concrete forms--were developed that allowed for better insulation within bricks. But Spakousky thought they were too bulky and cost-inefficient, so he started to experiment slowly on the side while he continued to contract and design buildings.

After several years of making prototypes and working through the patent process, Spakousky finally had a worthy product. In 1998 he formed PentaWall to license the technology to construction manufacturers, and then moved to Minneapolis, because 80% of masonry units are sold east of the Rockies. So far, Spakousky is off to a good start. Last spring PentaWall raised $1 million in a private placement offering. Spakousky won't name his partners but says he has made a dozen tentative deals with U.S. construction manufacturers.

Quality Research GOOD VIBRATIONS

Taking a cue from the Beach Boys, Daryoush Allaei decided to make a career out of managing good vibrations. Now it looks like his skill at it could make him a very rich man. This year Allaei's Quality Research Development and Consulting Inc., in Excelsior, Minn., introduced a device that helps contain and minimize the impact of vibrations on structures. This was an area he had been researching at the University of Mississippi.

When the U.S. Department of Defense heard about his work, it awarded his company a $2.5 million grant to develop the technology. The Navy is testing his device on ships and submarines at sea. The Army is using it to reduce the recoil of machine guns mounted on aircraft.

In the past, engineers used layers of heavy, shock-absorbing material to help structures withstand the impact of, say, bombs or earthquakes. Allaei's breakthrough came in the design of a lightweight "energy sink." Sensors help pull vibrations into the sink, which collects and subdues them. His device would allow ships, subs, aircraft, and other structures to shed their old shock-absorbing armor. Result: lower fuel costs, for one.

Quality Research hopes to raise $10 million by the end of the year from venture capitalists and other investors to test its technology on other commercial applications.

CEO Allaei, 43, thinks his device has a future in commercial applications too. He hopes to see the technology in cars, where it could save lives by reducing the impact of accidents. Even music lovers could benefit. Orchestra halls might use it to create places that resonate with perfect sound.

Troba TRACKING NETSHOPPERS

At first, Elizabeth Charnock and Terrence Talbot, two Sun Microsystems emigres, thought about writing an e-business bestseller on how to create user-friendly Websites. They even had a title picked out--One False Click. But what dynamic duo in Silicon Valley wants to spend a year writing a book when in the same amount of time they could launch a Web startup? So Charnock, 33, and Talbot, 32, shelved the book plan in May 1999 and founded Troba. In February, the San Francisco company unveiled its innovative software, which lets businesses watch what's happening on their e-commerce site, understand why it's happening, and be able to do something about it before they lose customers.

Troba's software, code-named Barcelona, works like a hidden camera in a store, letting an e-tailer observe cybershoppers as they ramble through his or her Website's virtual aisles. The Troba tools can identify someone as a frustrated customer and let the site manager intercede by initiating a chat session to help the customer before she gets fed up and leaves.

The tools also provide a site-analysis service; there's a free version on Troba.com called (as you might have guessed) OneFalseClick. The hidden camera software, which should be available this month, will be sold by subscription for $20,000 to $500,000 a year. Troba already has customers, such as real estate hub Owners.com and golf club e-tailer Chipshot.com. It is raising $2 million in angel funding to finish building its preview version before going the VC route.

Vectron FACTORY WATCHDOG

There has always been a market for a device that more accurately tests circuit boards--which are used in everything from computers to wireless phones--as they come off the assembly line. Joseph Vilella, 48, thinks he has the answer. He and a partner have designed a $250,000 device that is accurate enough to take digital images of the newly made circuit boards and measure those images biometrically against a blueprint of the perfect board stored in the machine's memory.

Vilella's device is so accurate it can spot a missing chip the size of a poppy seed. Until now, factories have employed devices with black-and-white images. By using color, Vilella's device improves accuracy to almost 100%, from 90%.

Vectron, based in San Diego, has only one customer so far, but it's a whopper: wireless giant Qualcomm. Others, such as Motorola and Nokia, are interested. As a result, CEO Vilella expects sales of $12.5 million this year.

Veritas Medicine DRUG TRIALS RECRUITER

Medical Websites are popping up faster than chicken pox in a kindergarten. Newcomer Veritas Medicine aims to be different. Started by a trio of med school friends, it hopes to launch a site that's a true lifesaver--and one that will shake up the stodgy drug industry in the process.

Veritas' gambit: clinical trials. The company wants to lure visitors to the site with comprehensive coverage of diseases and conditions written by M.D.s from Harvard-affiliated hospitals. From those visitors, Veritas hopes to recruit volunteers to participate in tests of new drugs. The site will screen candidates before sending them to the drug companies.

If successful, Veritas could streamline the laborious drug-testing process. Before a drug gains approval from the FDA, it must undergo rigorous tests on human subjects. But it takes a drug company about 40 weeks to recruit enough people. They estimate they lose about $1 million a day while a new drug sits in the lab.

Rob Adelman, M.D., 37, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Veritas, says the company, which hopes to fetch recruitment bounties from drugmakers, could cut the trial-filling time in half. Veritas has raised $1 million in seed capital from the Cambridge Incubator and Seaflower Ventures and is in talks with top drugmakers, including Merck and Pfizer. No takers at press time.

Based in Cambridge, Mass., the company intends to launch its site this spring. But it could face stiff competition. Several other sites are pursuing the trials market, including that of the National Institutes of Health.

Vistify ELECTRONIC VALET

Make room on the countertop for the iBot. This kitchen gadget is a kind of electronic valet that will allow you to order home delivery of pizza, videos, and milk over the Internet.

The iBot idea guy is Wilfred Martis, 35, a former Intel marketing exec. Three years ago, while getting his MBA at Wharton, he wrote a paper about a device that would make buying convenience items a lot more convenient. After all, who wants to schlep to the store for a six-pack after a long day at work?

Last year Martis decided the time was right. He enlisted the help of his brother, another Intel alumnus, and a former business school buddy turned management consultant named Menekse Gencer to bring his bright idea to market. Gencer came on board as chief marketing officer. The three pooled their savings ($400,000) and launched a company called Vistify to make the device, code-named iBot.

The iBot resembles a tiny laptop screen mounted on a colorful base. Expected to sell for less than $200, the device will tap into the Internet through a phone line. By touching pictures or icons on the screen with a finger or stylus, a homeowner will be able to order items for delivery from e-tailers and other stores. First to get their hands on the gadget in a few months will be tech-savvy residents of San Francisco and Seattle.

Vistify has won at least one convert so far. In January, Panasonic invited the company to join its incubator in San Francisco. Vistify's next challenge: to raise $10 million in venture capital to start making the device.

Xenogen LIGHT-TAGGING CELLS

Five years ago, while working at Stanford University, Pamela Contag and her husband, Chris Contag, discovered a process called light tagging. By injecting a protein taken from fireflies into a living animal, they found, scientists can set certain organs aglow. Using highly sensitive and sophisticated video cameras, scientists can identify tumors or other abnormalities in organs without performing surgery.

Pamela Contag, 42, and a partner launched Xenogen, based in Alameda, Calif., to commercialize the discovery. Among the first to buy rights to the process: Bausch & Lomb, Eli Lilly & Co., Hoffman-LaRoche, and Novartis. (Some use the light tagging on drug testing of lab animals.) Estimated sales this year: $5 million.

Yet2.com BRAINTRUST EXCHANGE

Wouldn't it be great if you could pick some of the world's most innovative brains with just a keystroke? That's the concept behind Yet2.com, a 15-month-old startup in Cambridge, Mass., that bills itself as the world's first online proprietary technology exchange. The founders are CEO Chris De Bleser, 49, a former tech manager at Polaroid, and president Ben du Pont, 36, a former global business manager for Du Pont. Their site lists hundreds of patented technologies developed by corporations, entrepreneurs, research labs, and universities that can be licensed or purchased.

Background: As a veteran of the research and development world, De Bleser knew that nearly 90% of technological advances never see the light of day. Yet2.com's goal, he says, is to make those innovations available to the R&D community so it can use them for a variety of other commercial applications.

Say you're looking for a new kind of brake system technology for your manufacturing plant. For $25 a pop, you could scan the Yet2.com site across a variety of industries looking for a technology that you might be able to adapt. (To protect the intellectual property from being ripped off, Yet2.com posts only a general description of what the technology does. And to protect its own role as broker, the owners' names are withheld.) Yet2.com will broker the deal and take a 10% commission.

Already nearly three dozen major corporations, including Allied Signal, Procter & Gamble, and Toshiba, have signed agreements to post their intellectual property. Since the Website's launch in February, it has been brokering more than half a dozen deals. Investors include Honeywell, 3i, and Venrock, among others, which have pumped $20 million into the startup.

by Carlye Adler, Bronwyn Fryer, Anne Ashby Gilbert, Jane Hodges, David Lidsky, Maggie Overfelt, Edward Robinson, and Julie Sloane

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