More than $1 million in early-stage capital is being invested in six local companies by Ben Franklin Technology Partners, according to a press release this morning.
The announcement also includes $25,000 for TicketLeap, $200,00 for Bucks County’s AssetVUE which provides real-time tracking assets for data centers; $250,000 for Wayne’s Essential Medical, focused on cardiac catheterizations in leg arteries; $200,000 for Philly’s Novetas Solutions, which uses recycled glass for blast cleaning, $150,000 for Villanova’s Real-Time Tomography, which creates medical image processing software.
More on those companies, from the release, after the jump. Read more
Google Offers, a competitor for Groupon and Living Social from the search engine giant, has launched in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh today, according to a press release.
The first offer in Philadelphia — to be found at google.com/offers — is for the Marathon Grill. Future offerings include ones for Southwest staple turned Old City cheesesteak shop Campo’s.
ListenLogic, the Fort Washington social business intelligence firm, has done just that, including the infographic above and more on the chatter surrounding this social media-driven movement.
From Tumblr user anacrisi, and referenced on This is Not a Cheesesteak.
Cheesesteaks don’t have to be just another cliche we’re saddled with, says Michaelangelo Ilagan.
The SAP web designer and Geekadelphia contributor is embracing the 80-year-old native hoagie variation by chronicling how far, wide and wrongly it has spread. Meet This is Not a Cheesesteak, a Tumblr that Ilagan is curating to collect new takes on the steak sandwich standard that he considers an insult to our roots.
“Unlike Rocky, we’re not revering something fictional. @visitphilly called it ‘Cheesesteak Pride’ when they tweeted a link to my Tumblr,” said Ilagan, 27, who goes by Mikey Il. “Let’s make that a thing. The cheesesteak is 100 percent real and absolutely delicious when done right.”
Joe Deivecchio, middle, works with mentor Ryan Wertman and Open Talk sponsor Ankur Oberoi to develop his startup idea on Saturday. Photo: Theresa Regan
Technically Philly reporters Brian Dzenis and Theresa Regan contributed to this report.
Part accelerator and part American Idol, Philly’s second ever Start Weekend was a weekend-long hackathon where teams of designers, developers work to create a functioning startup in 54 hours. On Sunday, the teams presented to the 150 attendees and a panel of judges for a handful of prizes that included a Dell Duo laptop, an XBox Kinect and legal services from Morgan Lewis and Volpe Koenig.
Ted Mann of EffthePPA presents to the judges150 people came
This year’s winner, Eff the PPA is an application that does exactly what it the name implies: it finds the best parking spot, makes sure you don’t forget about your parking meter and if you get a ticket it will link you up with an attorney to help fight the ticket. (see the demo here)
See the video of judge and CEO of Dell Boomi Bob Moul announcing the winners.
“$9.95 for the website, and two paying customers and we are cash flow positive,” said Eff the PPA team member Ted Mann, during the demo.
Launchrock's logo (left) compared to Eff The PPA's logo
“Borrowing” its logo from last year’s winnerLaunchrock, Eff the PPA took home first place. Hang Plan, an application to help you link up with friends took second. Intro’d a mobile app that helps streamline and automate email introductions took third. While each of the startups above link to a splash page, all three companies had fully functioning apps for their demos.
Presenting startups ranged from working applications to just being PowerPoint presentations. The rapid prototyping and popularity of mobile apps was, in part, thanks to DreamIt Ventures company and former Startup Weekend participant Cloud Mine. The mobile development service made its API available to all companies and was frequently mentioned during the demos of the final day.
“They deserve a lot of credit,” said co-organizer Yuriy Porytko. “they ran around like a busy bee all weekend, setting up all the teams.”
Two companies, Eff the PPA and Fitly had already received revenue by the end of the weekend.
Another noticeable trend was the number of law students on the teams, likely thanks to the event’s venue: The Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University. One of the presenting companies, ApprenNet was focused specifically on law students.
Three entrepreneurs with a hodgepodge of experience hold court around a 4 foot by 6 foot breakfast table in the attic of one of their homes in Wayne. They often keep a bowl of fruit in the middle, where each partner can reach it.
“We’re in a classic startup space,” said Sean McCloskey, the co-founder of Lavahound, a versatile, location-based iOS application built for discovery. Clients, including those they have and those they want to have, tend to be large enterprises hoping to gamify existing experiences, like universities, amusement parks or other institutions seeking an interactive experience around location.
Like Sesame Place, the familiar, family theme park in Bucks County, that is currently an alpha user of Lavahound, around their ‘Spooktacular‘ event that runs to the end of October.
“We’ve created a photo treasure hunt around the park that encourages visitors to find various places of interest and trick or treat stations around the park using their mobile phone,” said McCloskey, 30, who adds that engagement is high among trial users. “Our app gives visitors a map that pinpoints what to find, a gallery of the images that shift in accordance to where you are, and info related to what you are finding.”
Next, the Lavahound team wants to move into the tourism and education fields, both crowded markets, he said.
Indeed, location-based services and gamification are a hot market nationally right now, a concern, McCloskey said, that doesn’t have him worried because of the sleeker, faster-moving product and the team that surrounds him.
Whether you were cheering for the Eagles or putting the final touches on your Startup Weekend project (more about that later today), we hope you had a good weekend, Philadelphia.
This week: BarCamp Philly is back, hear why we love Philly and save journalism.
Boston’s OpenView Ventures has pulled a Ben Franklin, emerging seemingly out of no where from Boston to help spur Philadelphia’s startup ecosystem with investments in Philadelphia-based startups Monetate, Xtium and NextDocs.
The firm purposefully avoids New York and Silicon Valley and instead looks for regions that are outside of the hype cycle, so it is targeting Philadelphia as a channel for new deals.
“It’s clear to us that the businesses being funding out West are often not real businesses,” says Adam Marcus, managing director at Open View.
We spoke with Marcus about why the the lack of ego in Philly is a good thing and why he once had a job watching tall, drunk Celtics. Read more
I remember clearly when a friend first pointed me to Google, it was a revelation. Using it was a palpably better experience. As part of the process of evaluating DuckDuckGo, several of us switched our default search engines in Chrome (there’s simple how-to instructions below the search box on DuckDuckGo’s homepage), and had a similar “ah ha” moment. The company is young and under staffed so there are definitely holes Gabriel hopes to fill, but his observation that “traditional algorithmic signals are not the only authority on the web,” and his clever use of real authorities to curate search results makes Duck Duck Go an interesting alternative to your everyday brand.
Steve Jobs. Our economy. My suggestion. [John Fazio blog] — The co-founder of Northern Liberties hackerspace Devnuts writes about wanting to create smaller businesses to localize wealth.
More than $1 million in early-stage capital is being invested in six local companies by Ben Franklin Technology Partners, according to a press release this morning.
Whether you were cheering for the Eagles or putting the final touches on your Startup Weekend project (more about that later today), we hope you had a good weekend, Philadelphia.
If you’ve 
