PROVIDENCE – The Slater Technogy Fund completed or approved a total of $3.1 million in investments in 11 Rhode Island-based technology ventures in the state fiscal year ended June 30, the quasi-public organization said today. The sum included $1.75 million in transactions completed in fiscal 2008 and another $1.35 million that were completed after the fiscal year’s close.

Four of the 11 institutions were receiving first-time investment commitments from the fund.

The other seven were receiving follow-on investments: two from the Slater Fund alone and five in which the fund was acting in parallel with co-investors. In the latter transactions, “Slater invested a combined $1.1 million while co-investors contributed $2.3 million, evidencing significant leverage of Slater’s investment,” fund officials said today.

For the third consecutive year, “capital recovery … contributed significantly to the fund’s annual budget,” the Slater Fund added. The fund recovered more than $780,000 from its portfolio companies in the fiscal year just ended.

“It was also the third year in a row that Slater’s investment commitments to R.I.-based ventures exceeded its legislative appropriation from the State of Rhode Island,” the fund noted.

Initial funding or commitments from Slater Fund in fiscal 2008 went to:

• $500,000 to P&H Therapeutics Inc. of Providence, a next-generation biomedical development startup founded by former Pfizer researchers to develop small-molecule medications to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) and dyslipidemia (a class of blood-lipid ailments that includes high cholesterol).

• $350,000 to Media Exchange Research Corp. of Providence, an information technology (IT) startup that aims to help publishers, advertisers and content creators optimize media consumption by the fragmented online audience.

• $250,000 to ProThera Biologics Inc. of East Providence, a Lifespan biomedical spinoff working to develop “natural serine protease inhibitors” for the treatment of life-threatening conditions that include cancer, sepsis and intoxication.

• $100,000 to MoFuse Inc. of Providence, an IT startup that helps Web-site owners launch and manage mobile-phone versions of their sites.

Follow-up funding or commitments were issued by Slater Fund to:

• $350,000 to Andera Inc. of Providence, a financial IT firm offering a suite of products and services for automated online account opening, funding and cross-selling.

• $250,000 to Creative Circle Advertising Solutions Inc. of Providence, a provider of hosted services for media companies including Providence Business News. CCAS focuses on applications for user-generated content and self-service advertising.

• $250,000 to Cardiorobots Inc. (formerly Innovention Technologies Inc.) of Middletown, a robotics company focusing on developing advanced technologies for minimally invasive surgery.

• $250,000 to Genome Corp. of Providence, a biotechnology company focusing on the development of cheaper, high-volume next-generation DNA sequencing technology for use in large-scale “sequencing factories.”

• $250,000 to Public Display Inc. of Providence, a Web-application company focusing on the development of information-extraction software for Web publishers, advertisers and consumers.

• $150,000 to Location Inc. of Woonsocket, a real estate IT company that is the publisher of neighborhood search engine www.NeighborhoodScout.com.

• $150,000 to Tizra Inc. of Providence, an IT firm whose Web-based publishing platform helps businesses and universities to flexibly package and sell portable document format (PDF) and other information.

“Our focus in recent years on improving the cost-effectiveness of the fund, and refining our investment strategy, has begun to pay significant dividends,” Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Fund, said in a statement today.

“The emphasis on higher-quality investments has enabled us to attract significant co-investment, thus leveraging Slater’s public-sector funding with meaningful private-sector support,” Horan said. “Together, these efforts hold considerable promise for making a significant contribution to the development of the innovation economy here in Rhode Island.

“We are quite optimistic about the prospects for the coming year.”

The Slater Technology Fund, established in 1997 by then-Gov. Lincoln Almond and the R.I. General Assembly, provides seed capital to technology-based businesses in Rhode Island. Additional information is available at www.SlaterFund.com.