First Round invests in Mint.com, again

The region’s most active venture capital firm has thrown more of its weight behind financial planning site Mint.com.

The Web 2.0 banking site just closed a $14 million Series C round that includes Conshohocken-based First Round Capital amongst the six investors. First Round has contributed to each of Mint’s five funding rounds.

Mint, the winner of the first TechCrunch 40 event, allows users to import banking and credit card information and track spending with robust budgeting features. Mint makes its money by scanning your spending and suggesting ways you can save money.

Despite most people’s reluctance to offer up their financial information, Mint is earning $10 million a year from sales, and the company’s security record has been flawless. Mint has not yet followed up on their announcement that they will begin selling aggregated anonymous user data, which could be a large revenue stream for the company.

As usual, First Round was the only investor with East Coast offices. Other investors include DAG Ventures, The Founders Fund, Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures.

The funding round was first reported by Silicon Valley Insider.

Comcast Roundup: Earnings call news, Godzilla law suit and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

No shortage of perspective came out of Comcast’s Q2 earnings call last week.

Largely on the back of higher prices, the Associated Press writes that our own MSO reported earning $967 million this second quarter over the same period last year, a 53 percent increase. That beat estimates from two dozen analysts, reports the Philadelphia Business Journal, though the boom was related to favorable settlements regarding state and federal taxes.

Dudes from Reuters, ever the downers, reported that that higher-than-expected profit came against losing more video subscribers than guesses had suggested. They blamed the loss on the weak economy and continued competition from phone and satellite companies.

The Washington Post ran with a MocoNews report focusing on Comcast’s Clearwire partnership to bring 4G wireless broadband, which we reported is beginning in Portland, Ore. and Atlanta. Are they worried about sharing the new market with wireless companies like Verizon?

“I’m not sure how quickly they’ll roll that out,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said on the call. “They’re barely deployed to 3G and it’s an open question as to what the return on capital would if they completely go to the next generation.”

After the jump, Comcast owns Vonage, a lawsuit about Godzilla and three other stories for the faithful.

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Section 8 bash at Tattooed Mom on South Street: A Technically Philly and Geekadelphia co-sponsored event

You are invited to our second Technically Philly event.

Working with our friends at Geekadelphia, we are hosting a release party for Timegate’s upcoming first person science-fiction shooter, Section 8 on Wednesday, Aug. 26th beginning at 8 p.m. at Tattooed Mom on South Street near 5th Street.

This is primed to be a great event for the geekier portion of our readership, complete with free games, T-shirts, posters, drink specials and even appropriately-themed goodies from Open Source Cupcakes. We’re expecting appearances from Joystiq, the Videogame Growth Initiative and many, many others.

You can confirm on the Facebook announcement.

For those of you who love big community events with lots of free swag and great people, then consider this the end of the announcement. For those of you who are following our growth as a news product, here’s a quick tour through our logic.

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Digital Philadelphia: what it is, what it means and what’s standing in the way

Before Friday, the City of Philadelphia, specifically its division of technology, will submit a proposal to the federal government, asking for a big slice of at least $4.6 billion set aside for municipal broadband development.

When city chief technology officer Allan Frank first announced his bold plan for a $100 million 10-year strategy, we were surprised no other news organization in this the fourth largest media market in the country seemed to care. And as it turns out, Allan Frank has corrected us: that $100 million is just for the internal IT overhaul alone. Oh, the things you find out when you hit the streets.

So, we’d like to introduce a large package on Frank’s Digital Philadelphia plan. Go and explore just what your city government is spending so much time pursuing.

Follow this link for the full report, or continue reading about the project after the jump.

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Microsoft finally sells Razorfish for $530 million

Publicis, a French advertising firm with clients as large as Coca-Cola, is the proud new owner of Razorfish.

We’ve been chronicling the plight of Razorfish for a few months now. To recap: Microsoft acquired Razorfish’s parent company in 2007 and has been looking to unload the interactive agency ever since. Razorfish, formally known as Avenue A, has offices all over the world including Center City Philadelphia.

According to the Times of London, Microsoft was in “an unholy rush” to get the deal done so it wouldn’t have to pay scheduled bonuses to Razorfish’s employees.

Details of the deal after the jump.
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TNT: David Clayton of the Klein Art Gallery, “at the intersection of art and technology”

"Stadium" by Lee Arnold is an example of the optically-related artwork that is part of The Vitreous, an exhibit at University City's Klein Art Gallery until Sept. 5.

An eager-looking gentleman in his late twenties with a toothy grin and a generic blue dress button-up was hanging around the Klein Art Gallery with what seemed like a few questions on his mind.

Though he remained polite, if he did get too friendly, it’d be tougher to dispatch him from Klein than most art installations. There aren’t steps worthy of an epic movie trilogy or foreboding 19th-century Gothic columns guarding its entrance. The nearly 35-year-old University City art venue, which recently opened its first nationally juried exhibition, is in the lobby of a Market Street office building.

“We don’t have a problem with foot traffic,” says David Clayton, Klein’s soft-faced, self-proclaimed “geek” curator. “You’ll get bike couriers and research scientists wandering through the exhibits. I think it’s a real success when we can just disrupt their day.”

So there’s no telling where that gentleman visitor came from or to where he disappeared after Clayton, 30, finished showing Technically Philly around the small and neat 22-artist exhibit called The Vitreous: Eyes and Optics, which explores themes of eyesight, visual perception and optical phenomena through contemporary art practices.

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Event highlights for the week of August 10 – August 16, 2009

If you’re looking to hire or looking to get hired, this week’s event highlights are for you.

There’s a small handful of events dedicated to small businesses and job-seeking IT professionals. There’s even a small business insights meeting, one normally a tad outside our normal coverage, but hosted by a tech business leader.

Wednesday, Discovery Tech owner Todd Royer will lead the lunch to help small business owners find their next great hire. Thursday, the Delaware County Web Technology Meetup Group will help the unemployed, underemployed, and wannabe fun-employed find that next job.

It’s certainly a week to put down the beer at that social meetup and get professional. Winter’s coming fast, folks. It’s time to start storing those nuts, if you catch my drift.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

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Friday Q&A: Russell Greig of GlaxoSmithKline’s SR One

Russell Greig has come a long way.

The 57-year-old Scotsman, who still carries that signature and recognizable accent, rode a Fulbright scholarship and a nearly three-decades-long career with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to head SR One, the company’s corporate venture capital arm that is no small part of this region’s VC scene, last year.

Greig himself is a fine personification of GSK’s history, now a London-based multinational that grew through several mergers and acquisitions from a 19th-century Philadelphia research laboratory.

GSK still has Philadelphia offices, but it is decidedly an international affair now, neatly represented by Greig and his resume stuffed with international datelines.

SR One itself has, perhaps like Greig who assumed his new leadership role in June 2008, moved. It was launched 24 years ago in Center City but now is a suburban venture, nestled in Conshohocken, like what regional biomedical companies in which they invest.

The University of Manchester alumnus seems to like it here though, raving about the schools and calling those Philadelphia suburbs home to more beautiful trees and seasons than most anywhere he’s seen.

But our life sciences he says, just might not be as distinctive as we’d like to think, no matter the recent attention we’ve gotten for them.

Below, Greig explains why SR One is so Philadelphia, what he would do if he was king and why he “carefully” calls our region’s biomedical innovation disappointing.

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Friday Tech Links: Philly parking application, PECO pushes for smart grid and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

We all heard rumors and stories and suggestions of it before.

But, yes, as seen on Innovation Philadelphia, a Drexel University business student led a team that developed a system in which the Philadelphia Parking Authority could locate parking violations using WiFi, using the same system that drivers could utilize to find parking with GPS and smart phones.

This is something we could absolutely get behind, considering we talked up something similar as a suggested iPhone application we’d like to see. That’s even if it would make it more likely to get a $36 parking violation for leaving a Chrysler LeBaron on Lombard Street in the Graduate Hospital area 10 minutes too long. Just sayin’.

After the jump, check out five other tech stories you need to read, including our best ready story and not including a video from the biggest geeks in town.

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The birth of Philadelphia’s video game scene

THE SUITORS: (L-R) Damon Alberts, Mike Worth and Hardik Bhatt of the Videogame Growth Initiative are trying to talk officials into making Philly worth game developers' while. (Credit: Mark Stehle)

Note: this article appeared in today’s Citypaper and has been republished with permission.

The members of the Videogame Growth Initiative Philadelphia (VGI) are buzzing around a seventh-floor conference room high above Broad Street. The group has two hours to convince representatives of state government that it’s worth creating new incentives to lure video game companies to Philly.

Audio engineer Mike Worth along with local video game executive Damon Alberts, Drexel professor Frank Lee, lawyer Dennis Manning and developer Hardik Bhatt, churn through slides, charts, spreadsheets and game screenshots at a rapid-fire rate as representatives from state government and city economic groups look on.

At first, the guests’ gazes are empty, and energy level low. But the high-octane presentation soon has them interested.

“There’s no reason Philadelphia can’t be the Hollywood for video games,” Bhatt says.
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