Below are just a few headlines our companies have made in the last three months.

Energy

Aquion Energy opens new manufacturing facility, plans to add 400 high-tech manufacturing jobs by end of 2015

Plextronics scales up for manufacturing of OLED components, major hiring

Westmoreland Advanced Materials wants to help aluminum makers be more efficient

IT

MogiMe teams up with the University of Pittsburgh and CORE to create a video game that educates and encourages organ donation

The Resumator moves to bigger office, planning more growth

Life Sciences

Accel Diagnostics puts medical diagnosis on a fast-acting chip

ALung Technologies Raises $10 Million in Series B Financing

Cohera Medical heading into U.S. trials

Robotics

4Moms unveils their Origami Stroller at CES 2012

Blue Belt Technologies announces new facility to accommodate for European rollout of device

RedZone Robotics closes on $8.5M

Companies selected to participate in AlphaLab’s program are given $25,000 in seed investment, office space, education sessions, extensive mentoring, and connections to the entrepreneurial and investor community. Since 2008, AlphaLab has helped launch 47 companies and sent over 100 entrepreneurs through its intensive 20-week program. Recently, AlphaLab has been ranked among the Top 15 Startup Accelerators in the Nation.

Though companies participating in this program have traditionally been in the software, web, and mobile space, recently AlphaLab has broadened its approach to include more agile hardware companies or any other companies that can make significant progress and reach significant milestones during 20-weeks.

AlphaLab’s eighth cycle of companies was selected from a record number of applications and started their program in January. We hope you’ll join IW, the Southwestern PA Ben Franklin Technology Partner, on May 23 in person or through our live streaming service to see our companies present to a roomful of investors and other stakeholders at AlphaLab Demo Day.

For an invite to the event or link to the live video stream, please email Susan Bower at sbower@innovationworks.org.

Current AlphaLab companies include:

Accel Diagnostics
Accel Diagnostics is developing pScreen™, a lab-on-chip protein diagnostic platform that enables inexpensive, disposable, credit-card sized devices to be used for the rapid and low-cost diagnosis of infectious and chronic diseases at the point-of-care. pScreen™’s ability to deliver an accurate diagnosis within 30 minutes results in a higher quality of care at a significantly lower cost.

ActivAided Orthotics
ActivAided Orthotics offers a custom rehabilitative body suit that uses biofeedback to teach users self-corrective habits to remedy lower back pain. Over 26 million Americans under the age of 65 experience frequent back pain, resulting in limitations in physical activity. This unique wearable solution enables people to recover, quickly and conveniently, while still maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle.

Bracketz
Bracketz helps marketers engage their online audiences with interactive, tournament-style marketing promotions – driving user engagement, data collection, and revenue generation.

HeadRight Games
HeadRight Games is a game development studio creating casual games for PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones. Led by industry veteran Matt Rodgers, HeadRight is currently working on their first project, a hidden object puzzle adventure game.

Insurance Zebra
InsuranceZebra allows users to instantly compare accurate and unbiased quotes from all major insurance carriers, turning the time-consuming and difficult task of shopping for insurance into a quick and easy process.

RoommateFit
RoommateFit is an eHarmony for roommates, and uses a research-based matching questionnaire to create compatible roommate pairings. Bad roommate pairings are a major factor in freshman dropouts, which have a direct financial impact on the 3500 universities across the country.

IW will present some of the most exciting seed- and early-stage tech companies in the Pittsburgh region that are primed and ready to grow, as well as a first look at some high-potential technologies from its university partners. The remarkable achievements of IW companies will be highlighted, as will IW’s plans for 2012 and beyond.

Over the past three years, 72 percent of all venture deals in the Pittsburgh region have gone to IW companies that previously received seed investment.

The day begins at 1 p.m., with a first look at technologies featured in the i6 Agile Innovation partnership program between IW and Carnegie Mellon University, followed by the launch of the newest AlphaLab accelerator companies.

Later, as many as eight diverse IW portfolio companies will make their pitches for venture capital funding.

The day will conclude with IW’s Annual Community Meeting featuring a technology showcase along with an overview of the achievements of IW’s companies in the past year and a look at what’s in store for IW, the Southwestern PA Ben Franklin Technology Partner, and Pittsburgh’s entrepreneurial community.

For more information or an invitation, please contact Susan Bower at sbower@innovationworks.org.

But she also had a potential business problem. The business was based in California’s Bay Area, where high costs threatened to make it difficult to compete with overseas drug discovery companies. If Cognition Therapeutics was going to grow, it was going to have to find a new home.

And it did – on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

“We were aware of Pittsburgh’s longstanding concentration of neurobiology expertise, so we knew it was possible to build a neurobiology company in the city,” Catalano said. “As we looked into economic development agencies, we were put in touch with Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse.

“They really rolled out the red carpet for us, and Innovation Works, the Southwestern PA Ben Franklin Technology Partner, was key to that. The folks there were really wonderful in supporting us and welcoming us.”

That was 2007 and ’08. Since then, the welcome – and IW’s total of $450,000 in investments – has paid off impressively.

Cognition has made significant progress in discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics targeting the toxic proteins that cause the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases of the human brain. Catalano estimates the company is 12-18 months from taking its disease-modifying therapeutics to clinic – one of the final steps in the drug discovery process.

Cognition’s proprietary chemistry platform, Novel Improved Chemical Extracts, and its proprietary compound screening platform, the Early Alzheimer’s Screening System, combine to provide a greater ability to predict which compounds are going to be effective in human Alzheimer’s.

Ultimately, it could all add up to one thing: Effective treatment for neurodegenerative diseases, developed right here in Pennsylvania.

“We think these really have the possibility to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s in the near term,” Catalano said. “We are well-regarded by our peers, and we’re really every excited about moving forward.”

It was inefficient. It was wasteful. And even though a move toward a solution had started, the commoditized LED lighting systems coming from overseas were full of flaws.

There had to be a better way, and James J. Wassel was dedicated to finding it.

Years later, the fruits of the labor of Wassel and his team are being realized. ALSI, located in Ellwood City, is producing revolutionary solid-state lighting fixtures for use in street lights, warehouses, parking garages, offices, tunnels and more.

The high-powered, ultra energy-efficient LED lights offer energy savings of up to 90 percent. But that’s not all. ALSI fixtures are, quite literally, “smart.” Because of the company’s integrated ALLinkTM adaptive control system technology, their lights can be programmed to dim on demand, strobe in emergencies and notify engineers in the unlikely event of a failure.

“We thought, why not make them smart lights?” ALSI CEO David F. McAnally said. “We’re the first company in the world to create not only the most reliable and energy saving solid state light, but also an adaptive control system fully integrated into the light’s electronics, on the DC power side. There are others out there that can control the light via the external photocell, but many lights aren’t compatible with that type of system. Ours is actually built into each light.”

Seeing the Light

Innovation Works (IW), the Southwestern PA Ben Franklin Technology Partner, heard of ALSI’s potential as a job creator and innovator in 2010. After a series of talks, southwestern Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Technology Partner began a series of investments in the company that have totaled some $300,000.

“We’ve greatly appreciated and valued the relationship developed with IW and the funding received,” ALSI CEO David McAnally said. “Without the vision and support of IW, it’s doubtful we would have been able to bring the ALLinkTM adaptive control system from an idea to its present commercial operation.”

McAnally said IW has been essential in the company’s growth in a global market opportunity expected to reach more than $250 billion by 2015.

“We’ve greatly appreciated and valued the relationship developed with IW and the funding received,” the ALSI CEO said. “Without the vision and support of IW, it’s doubtful we would have been able to bring the ALLinkTM adaptive control system from an idea to its present commercial operation.

“They have been very supportive, and they are truly fine people to work with. If we have any issues in terms of the next level of capital we want to raise, we can go to IW and they can put us in touch with the right people.”

Large-Scale Implementation

ALSI’s vision of a world of efficient lighting is moving ever closer to reality. The company last month began delivery of its ALLED® solid-state street lights to Welland, Ontario, which will become the first city in North America to completely convert its streetlight system to LED fixtures with control systems.

Welland, which voted Sept. 20 to convert its 4,300 municipal roadway lights to ALSI’s ALLED SL4 fixtures and 2,400 decorative street lights to ALLED acorn fixtures, expects to save $2.3 million with the move.

“With the ALLED SL4 family of LED street lighting fixtures and the Energy Solutions program, we want LED street lighting to work for every municipality,” McAnally said. “We designed the SL4 to specifically meet the toughest performance and value requirements in the municipal market.”

After Welland, the sky is the limit for ALSI. Their team is presently working with a number of Fortune 100 companies and cities. ALSI’s sister company, SSL Energy Solutions, allows them to offer a full suite of installation, maintenance and financing programs for customers. And with a full suite of LED lighting products available, the future is bright.

“We can walk in and say ‘It’s all there; it’s one package,’” McAnally said. “No one else has that. We believe business will be good.”