Close but no cigar: A lot of people on Pittsburgh's tech scene seem close to something big, but they aren't ready to talk about it.

North Side-based venture capital fund Birchmere Ventures, for example, is close to signing a deal with an out-of-town medical devices firm that's expected to relocate to Pittsburgh. The company declined to comment or even hint at where this mysterious start-up might be coming from.

Biotech start-up Cellumen has signed a deal with Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners, the venture fund with interests around the state. Both groups declined to say how much the deal was for.

The Heinz Endowments, which infused the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse with $5.5 million in cash this week, has two finalists -- neither is a Pittsburgher -- vying for the job to replace economic opportunity program director Brian Kelley. Heinz has conducted a national search for Kelley's successor, and the start-up community hopes he or she will have as much moxie and vision as Kelley for local tech-based economic development.

Navigation Capital Partners LLC, the consulting firm run by venture capital veterans Paul Cohn and Rob Daley, is busy raising money for a Sharon-based custom motorcycle firm led by an unidentified serial entrepreneur. Their lips were sealed, too.

The Tobacco Settlement Investment Board met in Harrisburg this week, but it wasn't ready to decide whether local venture firm iNetworks or Commerce Health Ventures would get to manage the remaining $10 million set aside from the settlement for biotech firms. The board said it didn't have time to watch all of the applicants' presentations and make a decision, and it will continue the conversation at the next meeting. Commerce Health Ventures is the partnership formed with the King of Prussia-based private equity firm NewSpring Capital and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse.

Indiana-based Apangea Learning was voted the company "most likely to receive funding" at the Early Stage East Venture Fair in Philadelphia earlier this week. The company, led by Pittsburgher Lou Piconi, also was cited by an independent panel of investors as the top company in the Ben Franklin Technology Partners' portfolio.

Mars native Mark Steinke will be one of the first two people in the world to hold a doctorate in microsystems engineering. That makes him beyond an expert in microprocessors, the tiny yet super-fast and powerful computer chips that run just about everything we can't live without: laptops, iPods and PDAs. Steinke will receive his Ph.D. next Saturday from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has chosen Research Triangle Park, N.C., over Pittsburgh (boo!) and accepted a gig as a thermal engineer at IBM Corp.'s office there.

The National Center for Defense Robotics has contracted with Penn State's Electro-Optics Center to develop lower cost, more efficient electro-optical sensors for unmanned ground vehicles. Sub-contracts were awarded to local robotics firms RE2 Inc. and SEEGRID. Bill Thomasmeyer, president of the NCDR and executive vice president of the Technology Collaborative, expects the contracts to help generate new jobs in Pittsburgh's growing robotics industry.