Even before Boeing Co. officially launched its venture capital arm last April, Pittsburgh startup Near Earth Autonomy had worked on joint projects with the aerospace giant ever since it spun out of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in 2012.  That helped to give it a leg up when Boeing was looking for companies to fund with its new venture capital unit, as Near Earth was brought into the loop before Boeing officially launched it.  “If you’re in business, you talk to people,” Near Earth CEO Sanjiv Singh said. “They were starting this new division, this disruption innovation group, Boeing HorizonX, and starting to have conversations with companies, seeing what they were up to.”
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