The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s (Innovation Works ) has approved the investment of $650,000 in support of three regional companies. 

Health Monitoring Systems, Inc.
Pittsburgh (Allegheny)
Approved Investment: $200,000

Health Monitoring Systems is a pioneer in community health surveillance. The company maintains online networks to collect data from hospitals and other healthcare providers, and then offers analytics of the aggregated information to detect, pinpoint and understand real-time and emerging health and safety issues. Clients include public health authorities, hospitals and others in the healthcare industry who need to respond to existing and emerging threats to community health.

My Payment Network
Pittsburgh (Allegheny)
Approved Investment: $200,000

My Payment Network (MPN) develops and delivers electronic payment solutions for schools and small to medium-sized businesses through its self-service and easy-to-use web applications, SchoolPay© and MyPayNet®. Founded in 2005, the company has largely focused to date on the K12 school segment with sales distribution through resellers. MPN integrates its online payment functionality into the existing solutions provided by these resellers -- technology companies serving K12 that deem electronic payment as a value-added service. MPN has signed distribution contracts with twelve of these K12 focused partners that comprise 50,000 schools in their customer base (about 25% of the US K12 universe).

Penthera Partners, Inc.
Pittsburgh (Allegheny)
Approved Investment: $250,000

Penthera Partners develops and deploys commercial grade, end-to-end software products designed to enable the efficient delivery of video over wireless broadcast and unicast networks and their display on mobile devices including mobile phones, laptops and in-vehicle systems. Penthera Partners’ corporate headquarters, domestic sales, customer support and product development activities are based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company also maintains European sales and customer support operations located in the U.K.