BioEnterprise, the Cleveland-based biomedical business formation initiative published their Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report on Friday. The health care venture field is beginning to pick up. In terms of number of companies funded, Pittsburgh leads the pack with twenty-four totally almost $40 million in funding.
This high concentration stands out. In comparison the deals are smaller than the top city (in terms of amount funded) but the number of seed type funding provided is a good sign for Pittsburgh.
Comprising the report were mainly biopharmaceutical (48%) and medical device (38%). The larger Pittsburgh deals included Foundation Radiology Group, ALung Technologies, ClearCount and BodyMedia. The seed deals are hopefully companies to look for, including Almedtrac, Blacktown NC and Flexicath.
[via Pittsburgh Business Times]
myGov365 offers a new service to engage the public in the political process. Similar to the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenCongress.org, myGov365 allows users to support different politicians, bills, causes, etc. OpenCongress only gets as local as congressional districts, myGov365 takes the concept further by connecting at the “hyper-local” level such as city councils. This isn’t just a copy-cat idea, the best part of myGov365 is that it allows and encourages local politicians to interact within the network.
I recently was invited to join go the private beta and have had an opportunity to use the product. This is a perfect time for a product like myGov365 to launch – political participation was at an all-time high during the last presidential election and now with hot button issues such as the stimulus, health care reform and (for Pittsburgh) library closures and the tuition tax people are more interested than ever to know about the issues.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto spoke with me about his involvement and goals with working with myGov365. He became involved early on in the project and worked diligently for almost a year to clear the obstacles for myGov365. The trick was to allow for one-way communication and not put a burden on the City Clerks office. This is great news. Because of Peduto’s experience in working with open government initiatives and foresight this access is available free of charge to any group or individual interested.
Peduto goes on about myGov365′s goal to move beyond just government and into the community. He mentions that the beta will soon grow to include some “technically and social media savvy” non-profit organizations from the East End.
The goal of myGov365 is to give politicians and community groups an easy to use platform to engage with their constituents. I believe this is a great goal, but a lofty one. Politicians have numerous opportunities to interact and with their constituents via Twitter and Facebook – what compelling reason do politicians and constituents have to go to another network? Peduto belives that this is going to be the “Facebook or Twitter for Governments.” He may be right, but to get people to move between Facebook and myGov365 may pose a challenge.
Given that myGov365 is still in it’s infancy I think they have a chance to answer that question. Right now, they are working to refine their product. Despite some hiccups with the beta invites, myGov365 is a solid beta. Unfortunately the webpages look like a beta, right now it isn’t very polished (especially given the focus on design and usability in so many of today’s startups) and it takes some guessing to determine how to get information (like to find out what H.R. 3975 is, I have to click on the title and dig through the information there.)
Like most networks, you can comment on things (bills, etc), join or create groups and contact other members of the network. For the politically active this is a great tool to find like-minded individuals and discuss the topics. For the curious it’s great to see what representatives are promoting and discussing.
Overall I think it’s a solid product headed in the right direction for local politics and non-profits. But, I’m still going to use OpenCongress as my go-to reference for national issues because of the larger community and easier to navigate UI.
Malia Spencer has a new article up on Pittsburgh Business Times about ITSqc spinning out of CMU. While it isn’t exactly your typical sin-off, it does bode well for CMU and Pittsburgh. ITSqc works with companies such as IBM and Accenture to create models around the IT service sector.
“The research was done and the models were created and focus shifted from creating and gathering, which universities are great at, we produced the models and now it’s a more commercial adoption issue,” said company director Jeff Perdue of the decision to spin-off.
Now that the shift has moved from research to commercialization, Jeff thinks it’s time to spread their wings and fly. IT services is a maturing industry, it was only a short amount of time until a network of companies that support it was created. Not surprisingly, it came out of CMU. Good luck, ITSqc.
[Pittsburgh Business Times: IT service company ITSqc spins out from CMU]
BitArmor, a provider of data encryption software, announced earlier this fall that it was named in the 2009 Gartner Group Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection. This is a pretty big deal because the Magic Quadrant is viewed by many IT vendors—and IT buyers—as the Holy Grail in terms of establishing credibility in the information technology world. BitArmor’s CEO Patrick McGregor stated in a company press release:
“We believe that being positioned among industry leaders in the Magic Quadrant is a testament to BitArmor’s unique approach to data protection: actually protecting the data itself, rather than protecting a particular device or network.”
Gartner Group uses the Magic Quadrant tool to give IT buyers the ability to evaluate vendors in a particular technology market. Using completeness of vision and ability to execute as criteria, Gartner places vendors in one of four quadrants: Challengers, Niche Players, Visionaries and Leaders.
The Magic Quadrant report is a heavily referenced source of research for IT buyers. In fact, one of the criticisms of this report is that buyers often base purchasing decisions solely on which vendors are listed in the “Leaders” quadrant. However, Gartner Group goes out of its way to warn its subscribers that the report is not meant to be a specific guide to action, but rather simply a research tool to be used as part of a comprehensive evaluation process.
Making the grade as a serious player in Gartner Group’s eyes is not only great for BitArmor, but for Pittsburgh startups in general, as it brings positive visibility on a worldwide scale to the region’s entrepreneurial environment.
I will be co-presenting at this year’s 4th Annual Pennsylvania Business Technology Conference, November 12th from 8:30 a.m.to 4:30 p.m. You still have time to register so check out their website before you miss out.
Here is information about my workshop:
Blogging 101: How to Get Started, Build Readership & Make Money.
With more than 133 million blogs indexed by Technorati, it’s clear that blogging is a major new media force in today’s Web 2.0 society. But businesses are still learning how to leverage them to drive new business, establish their brand and reach new markets. Learn how to get started, attract readers and turn your blog into a potential money-making venture.
Presented by: Ryan Smaretsky & Jason Mosley
This should be a lot of fun since Ryan and I have a great presentation planed. Yes, I will be talking about bacon during my parts of the workshop.
If you attending let me know so we could have a Startup Pittsburgh meet up!
