How Much Risk Should You Take?

That appears to be one of the questions being asked about the Pittsburgh area's tech investment group. Read on.

Innovation Works, the state-funded nonprofit charged with growing the Pittsburgh region's tech start-ups, may re-evaluate its mission, investment strategy and management practices after an extensive review over the summer.

The 5-year old organization said the review had been planned but coincides with questions that have resurfaced about the Hazelwood-based organization's function.

An anonymous memo, sent last month by a "Concerned and Discouraged Angel Investment Group," to Innovation Works Chairman Sanford Ferguson, state Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Yablonsky, the heads of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh and others, contended that the organization was "misguided" and "out of control."

The memo's authors charge that the nonprofit funds only those companies that demonstrate the greatest potential to generate profits for investors instead of putting dollars toward what authors say are critically needed funds for new technologies and young companies.

The southwestern Pennsylvania region, the memo said, needs "significantly more early stage capital" than is provided by Innovation Works and other state-supported tech incubators, including the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse, the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and the Idea Foundry.

More here.