MEDC spokesman Michael Shore said 791 Letter of Intents were received by the 5 pm Feb. 17 deadline.

“Our office pool topped out at 400,” Shore said, “so we were really surprised at the high level of interest in this program.”

But if past practice serves, the MEDC only expects to get about 200 Full Proposals, including Letters Of Financial Commitment, by 5 pm March 24, Shore said. The breakout for Letters of Intent was roughly one third Life Sciences, one third Advanced Manufacturing, and the rest security and alternative energy.

Shore said the state will award roughly $100 million in the first of what is expected to be four rounds over the next 24 months. Round one winners are expected to be announced in July, when the second round will open.

“This Letter of Intent helps us gear up, given that no one anticipated this kind of response, when we sit down with the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and say these are the areas of interest,’’ Shore said. “They do a pretty rigorous examination of all the proposals and come back with a list of highly recommended, recommended or not recommended.”

Last year, the Michigan Life Sciences Fund made 24 awards for at total of $27.3 million, so the first round of funding alone is nearly four times higher than 2005.

The Michigan legislature appropriated $396 million for investments in the 21st Century Jobs Fund through fiscal 2007 with some $100 million already earmarked for priority technology projects. The total state investment in the project through 2011 is expected to be $1 billion with another $1 billion plus expected in private investments.

The money will come as loans to start-ups and small businesses and as grants for universities and non profit research in the areas of life sciences, alternative energy, advanced automotive, manufacturing and materials and homeland security/defense.

The state issued the RFPs for the first round of awards on Jan. 27. Those awards are expected to be made in mid July. Then a second round of awards will be announced in July with checks expected to go out before the end of the year, Michigan Treasurer Jay Rising said in an interview with Mitechnews.Com Editor Mike Brennan.

“We could do $396 million in one year,’’ Rising said. “But the idea is to create jobs in Michigan and to use the money to fund Michigan projects.” How many jobs? Rising said some federal studies show that up to 72,000 high paying tech jobs could be created in Michigan by the fund if it attracts a matching amount of private capital.

“We’ll have more than one competition this year on the commercial side,” he said. “We also hope to turn our $1 billion investment into $2 billion plus by getting matching funds from the private sector. Our investment will stimulate private investment in Michigan technology and technology companies.”