Innovation Works, the Ben Franklin Technology Partner for Southwestern PA, presented its annual public report along with a showcase of nine portfolio firms last Thursday. One message stood out. Through its own process of innovation, IW has been turning gaps in southwestern PA’s business infrastructure support into fast tracks for growth.
AlphaLab, the six-month tech-business incubator that IW launched last year, has added an entirely new level of intensity to the Pittsburgh startup scene–feeding a healthy dose of financial oats to the appetites of venturesome entrepreneurs while putting them in a space where they experience the paces of more seasoned trotters in the tech world.
The lab provides short-term funding, office space, business advisors, exposure to potential investors–and a key takeaway for the rest of the region. Far-and-wide, would-be tech starter-uppers are excited about the program. Last year, more than 100 companies from ten states applied to the program, which selects six applicants for each six-month cycle.
Jarun Ngamvirojcharoen, co-founder of AlphaLab-grad Cronos, offered an insight from those who get in: “AlphaLab helped us see that our technology had greater potential than just one application.”
One other telling item about IW’s overall role: 70 percent of venture capital deals in the Pittsburgh region last year involved IW portfolio companies, as they raised a total of $149 million in follow-on funding in 2008. During the past nine years, companies that Innovation Works helped before almost anyone else lent them a hand attracted more than $600 million in fresh capital investment.
Source: Innovation Works, Terri Glueck
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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