VC Roundup: State’s VC market is “too small”

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

Edit: Corrected source of Yodle funding.

DEFINITE READS

BFTP has announced its New Energy Plan, a contest awarding $35,000 to entrepreneurs looking to start a clean energy-oriented company. The contest deadline is April 15th, like your taxes.

First Round Capital has created an exchange fund for entrepreneurs. The fund allows portfolio companies to give up a piece of ownership in their own company for a tiny share of ownership in all First Round companies. Got that?

The Brookings Institution has released a report saying the state’s VC market is too small. “There are more things [the state] could do that wouldn’t impact the budget,” it says, citing BFTP as a step in the right direction.

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Technically Not Tech: Midtown Lunch invades Philadelphia

Update: Added blogger interview.

Let the record show that Technically Philly has two immediate reactions to MidtownLunch.com, the blog that aims to showcase cool places to eat during your lunch break for under 10 bucks:

1. Wonderful idea, a man can only go to Wawa so many times for lunch.
2. “Midtown?” C’mon now.

The site, originating from The 67th Ward, first expanded to downtown Manhatten and on January 13th expanded to Philly. The site is popular among Manhatten-ites, even landing coverage in The New York Times . According to Compete.com data, Midtown Lunch’s traffic (which is presumably is mostly due to its NYC content) is more than most of its new Philly competition, even the ones with an established presence in The 67th Ward.

The site author, Jamie (she prefers not to give her last name) is from Flushing and has taken the trip down the turnpike to go to law school (though she won’t disclose which one).

“I just really dislike going to generic [lunch] places,” she said in a phone interview with Technically Philly.

Jamie did her undergrad in the state and said she was always visiting friends in the city while at college. She maintained her own food blog and was profiled by Midtown Lunch before becoming the site’s Philly writer. She said hopes to make Midtown Lunch an outlet where people can find a “more fun lunch for people that work in the city for under ten dollars.”

But will the site’s Philadelphia section catch on here, where food blogs are as abundant as Phillies hats?

We explore using the same +/- rating system that the site uses in reviewing restaurants:

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Montgomery County publishes public safety emergencies online

Montgomery County's Department of Public Safety publishes emergency incidents online in several formats including a Google Map mashup.

The Montgomery County Department of Public Safety is using its Web site to post up-to-the-minute details of dispatched emergency calls, like fire, EMS and traffic incidents, garnering some attention from national government tech glossy Government Technology.

Along with a map of incidents (pictured), an RSS feed of activity, and a live audio feed of the department’s EMS and fire scanners, the department even offers a mobile version of the incident list.

According to department officials, the site was developed to reduce incoming calls from media inquiring about incidents. The site has “dramatically reduced” the number of calls, the publication reports, from 50 to 100 calls to sometimes two calls per day. The site gets 60,000 hits per month, officials say.

News to us is that Philadelphia’s police, fire and EMS audio feeds are also available online.

Event Highlights for February 1-7, 2010

We dream of the day when artists, forward-thinking nonprofits and public safety tech professionals get together for some seriously game-changing innovations. For now, we can only hope that each of these communities’ spots on our calendar this week will result in some cross-pollination, and perhaps some collaborative brainstorming.

Law enforcement officials from hundreds of organizations
are in town this week for a three-day, 1,500-attendee conference covering technology in public safety. Big Brother, where art thou? Oh, the Marriot.

On Tuesday, NetSquared will continue to amplify issues in nonprofits’ use of social media to achieve goals. They’ve gathered some thought-provoking organizations that have used the Twitters and the Facebooks out there to help propel their mission.

Wednesday, Hive76—which has basically owned this events highlights space since it re-opened, with its valuable events—has partnered with artist coalition PositiveSpace to bring the art and hacker communities together, at last.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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