PITTSBURGH – A Pittsburgh-based investment firm, iNetworks Advisors Inc., has announced a $20 million fund to invest in startup and early-stage health and life science companies in Southeast Michigan and Windsor.

The fund, iNetworksMichigan Fund LP, which already has about $15 million in commitments. It also has appointed Greg Auner, director of the Smart Sensors and Integrated Microsystems Program in the engineering department at WayneState University, as a managing director.

Auner will vet existing biotech companies as well as emerging technologies that might lend themselves to commercialization at member organizations of a collaboration known as TEAMS ? an acronym for technology and engineering applications in medicine and surgery. Members include the Detroit Medical Center, Henry FordHealth System, the Karmanos Cancer Institute and WilliamBeaumont Hospitals.

The fund will not invest in pharmaceutical companies.

Housed at Detroit’s TechTown and launched in March with funding by the New Economy Initiative, the First Step Fund typically invests $50,000 in very early stage companies in Southeast Michigan.

According to Laurie Forbes, managing director of iNetworks LLC, which is based at 300 River Place in Detroit, three area companies already are in due diligence for possible investments. She said investments will generally range between $250,000 and $1 million.

Auner has won more than $30 million in federal grants in the last 10 years and has collaborated on projects with the Kresge Eye Institute, Beaumont and the Karmanos Cancer Institute.

He is also an entrepreneur, co-founding Visca LLC, a WSU spinoff based in TechTown.

In January, Visca announced it had received a $3.4 billion grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for proof-of-concept testing to see if a sensor-based test can be developed to detect radiation in a single drop of human blood.

If the concept works, the grant calls for additional funding of $32.9 million to ramp up development of large volumes of small, portable testing units for use in the field.

?First of all, we’re not afraid of the Rust Belt. We’re from Pittsburgh, OK?? said Charles Schliebs, iNetworks’ co-founder and managing director. ?Detroit had its upheavals a little later than Pittsburgh had its. We see opportunities in Detroit, and we’re excited to take advantage of it.

?And we’re very excited to have Greg Auner join us. Greg could have taken that lab anywhere in the country, but he kept it in Detroit,? said Schliebs, who said he would bring in representatives of Pittsburgh companies to tour Auner’s sensor lab ?and pursue relationships.?

In fact, last Thursday, two executives of one of iNetworks’ portfolio companies, Propel IT Inc., drove in from Pittsburgh to meet with Auner. Propel makes equipment to reduce diesel fuel consumption by monitoring truck-driver behavior.

Company President Anthony Lacenere said the hardware placed in the engine needs more robust sensors capable of operating in high temperatures, which is one of the specialties of Auner’s lab.

Lacenere said that Propel would remain in Pittsburgh but, depending on how things work out with Auner, could move assembly operations here.

Schliebs also said he expects commercialization efforts locally to pick up once the deal by Nashville-based Vanguard Health System Inc. to purchase the DMC closes on Nov. 1.

iNetworks Advisors Inc. was founded in 1999 as a vehicle for high-net-worth individuals and institutions to invest in emerging companies. Until recently, it had no dedicated funds, doing one-off deals.

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