Advance Northeast Ohio recently announced that a Pittsburgh-based company, iNetworks, had decided to open an office in the Midtown area of Cleveland.  As reported, the company, which operates a $100M BioOpportunity fund, cites the following as the basis for making the decision to open for business in Northeast Ohio:

“The Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University and the thriving life sciences community in Cleveland and the rest of Ohio are dynamically moving forward the development and commercialization of cutting-edge life science technologies based in Ohio. iNetworks is excited to be part of this emergence, by investing in companies located in Ohio and participating in the relocation of companies seeking to be near the outstanding resources and world-class medical and scientific personnel in Ohio.

Pradeep Khosla, Managing Director-Technology for iNetworks and also Dean of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said ‘Cleveland is one of the geographic regions poised to succeed with the convergence of two areas of historic strength, healthcare on the one hand and information technology and other forms of engineering on the other. This convergence is where we see Cleveland and other parts of Ohio succeeding in the life science technology field.’”

Advance Northeast Ohio cites the importance of this development as another example of venture capitalists from outside the region bringing their knowledge and money into Northeast Ohio.  As they correctly state one measure of a region’s economic prospects is whether money from outside the region is being invested. 

NEOinc is proud to be one of the organizations specifically cited as helping to build an environment of success for early stage companies key to attracting investment sources from outside our region.

We have not met the iNetworks folks yet.  Once we have more information on their BioOpportunity fund, we will provide additional details here.