Startup Roundup: vcopius raises round of funding, Viddler plans move to bigger office

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with a weekly email newsletter by clicking here and selecting the Startup Roundup button or follow Startup Roundup’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS
Virtual reality meeting software platform vcopius yesterday announced a round of funding from Emerald Stage 2, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, MAG and Silicon Valley Bank. We’ll have more details on the deal soon, but the company also says it has added SIEMENS to its client list. The company previously courted SAP, which has been signed on since it hosted a virtual conference that hosted 13,000 online attendees. We featured the company in June 2010.

Bethlehem’s Viddler shares pictures of its new digs, which is opening to support its growth. The company also announced a beta launch of RTMP Streaming, which can, for instance, let viewers watch parts of a video not yet downloaded.

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Announcing Technically Philly Groups

If you keep an eye on our Event Calendar or our event coverage you know that Philadelphia has dozens of user groups and meetups for all kinds of programs, languages and technology.

Over the past few weeks some local groups have been meeting as a sort of “user groups of user groups” to help coordinate meetups, venues and sponsorships.

Allow us to help introduce Technically Philly Groups, a loose conglomeration of the area’s tech meetups and user groups. From Agile Philly’s Andre Dhondt:

Imagine a place you could go meet talented and passionate software team members–and you only had to wait for the right day of the week, since we’ve got events booked every week for the foreseeable future!  Welcome to Technically Philly Groups, a consortium of existing technical user groups in the greater Philadelphia region and an incubator for your favorite topic!

If you’d like to get involved we suggest check on out our new Groups tab above and sign up for the mailing list.

And, as always, Technically Philly will continue to list as many events as we know about on our Event Calendar. If we aren’t listing your group, please let us know and send us an iCal feed. Also, feel free to send us short write-ups and photos from your event for publication here on Technically Philly.

Freedom Rings Partnership: what it is and how public-private partnerships fuel its success [VIDEO]

Philadelphia residents prepare for a basic computing class at VICA Technologies LLC at 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Elaine Skoczylas said she knows how to type. It’s just the other things that are tricky.

“I’ve never really learned Microsoft Office. I don’t have a computer at home, but I had one in my job that I was using, I really didn’t need to know that other stuff,” Skoczylas said. “I knew how to type on our own system, so I got let go and now I’m trying to apply for jobs and I haven’t applied for jobs in 39 years.”

She’s trying to find a job now and has realized that just knowing how to type isn’t going to be enough.

“That’s why I’m trying to learn this.” she added.

To try and rectify her situation, Skoczylas signed up for a free Microsoft Office training course at VICA Technologies LLC, which is located near 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue. She was able to take part in the class thanks to the Freedom Rings Partnership, a collaboration between 16 different community organizations, nonprofits, universities and city government officials charged with the mission of giving Philadelphians access to computer technology and the Internet while also training them in its use.

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Knight Arts Challenge returns for second year in Philadelphia, submissions until Oct. 31 [VIDEO]

The second year of the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia launched last week, kicking off the second round of this $9 million arts funding initiative. Submissions are accepted until Oct. 31.

APPLY HERE.

Organizers will be hosting a town hall next Monday, Oct. 17, which you can RSVP for here.

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Socially-minded Investor’s Circle comes to Philly for 1st time

Welcome to the VC Roundup, 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.

MUST READ

Investor’s Circle, an angel network that uses private capital to support companies addressing social and environmental issues, is holding its venture fair from Oct 26-28 in Philadelphia. Ten to fifteen companies will present. This is the first time the event in Philadelphia and organizers have told Technically Philly that this is, in part, due to the city’s rising profile in the social enterprise space. Socially-focused incubator Good Company Ventures is now in its third class and Murex Investments and B-corp are also based in or around Philadelphia. In the past, IC has invested in PublicStuff, a Good Company, um, company.

Wharton has launched an innovation fund to help fund projects from students, staff and alumni. Alberto Vitale, a Wharton alum and former CEO of Random House has provided the first $125,000 of the fund. Recipients of the fund maintain intellectual property rights unless they use IP owned by the school.

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Storably looks to make use of your empty space, hold open house on Oct. 12th

The guys at Storably have a simple request: trust them.

The community parking and storage marketplace that launched at Philly Tech Meetup earlier this month is testing the limits of online trust. The company is connecting people with additional storage and parking spacing with those in need of a place to put their stuff. Those will extra space can place it up for rent, and then other users can earn the right to store their stuff there. Current users are renting everything from warehouses to bookshelves.

Put more appropriately, the guys at Storably want you to trust your fellow Philadelphians and three weeks after launching, the company is under a self-imposed 90-day sprint to add as many users as possible.

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Saturday: Tape ‘n Type aims to revive closeted typewriters and boom boxes

This weekend, Trophy Bikes owner Mike McGettigan’s nostalgic technology showcase will be back on display.

As part of DesignPhiladelphia this Saturday afternoon, owners of old equipment, like typewriters, cassette tape records, boom boxes and hi-fi cabinets will gather at Fergie’s Pub to show off their dated gear at Tape ‘N Type.

The event will feature a speed typing competition, and the chance to swap mixtapes, with a slew of prizes. RSVP here.

Last December, McGettigan launched his Type-in event at 30th St. Station, similar in scope. The new event calls back to the charm of audio equipment before compact discs and digital downloads.

Below, NewsWorks covers the Type-in.

Apps for SEPTA hackathon features new data sources and mass transit projects [VIDEO]

Simple SEPTA, an application meant to be the ‘sleekest’ interface for a variety of data sources from the region’s mass transit agency took top billing at the Apps for SEPTA hackathon hosted at the Devnuts hackerspace in Northern Liberties this weekend.

The native app, not yet live to the public, was built by Bryan Chacosky, Hunter Blanks and Michael Hand and won the top of three prizes out of a field of a nearly dozen projects. See Simple SEPTA’s Github work here.

[Full Disclosure: Technically Philly was a sponsor of the event and this reporter was a judge.]

All told, more than 30 participants took place on at least eight teams, though other side projects and deviations were shared as is often the case. At least six officials from the SEPTA emerging technologies team were on hand throughout the two-day event. In addition to a half dozen small projects to make SEPTA more rider friendly, the transit agency announcedit had opened up a dozen new data sources, as documented on a SEPTA URL including the word ‘hackathon,’ an innovation itself.

“I have never seen a city agency be this supportive and this present at a hackathon,” said Mark Headd, the Voxeo Labs developer who organized the event with web development firm Jarvus, which operates Devnuts and Technically Philly recently profiled. “So it’s no surprise we saw so many strong, viable products come out of it.”

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Startup Weekend is this week [Event Highlights]

For sports fans, it was a rough weekend. Our beloved Phillies let us down for the third straight year, leaving us a long offseason of second guessing.

However unlike a clutch Ryan Howard at-bat, Event Highlights always delivers. This week, create a startup, create a a new IP policy and then create a jQuery app.

And a reminder, you can get these event highlights delivered straight to your inbox every Monday at noon.

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Philly Startup Leaders outlines next steps for 2012

After a tumultuous 2011 that culminated in the group “fishbowling” itself, Philly Startup Leaders is beginning to take action to rebuild itself from the group up. Published on the PSL blog last week by acting president Chris Cera:

The following is a list of resolutions and future directions for PSL:

• Mailing List: The current PSL mailing list is now a completely public forum.  Anybody can subscribe and participate.
• Circles: We plan to make it easier for Circles to start, grow, and thrive within PSL and so we’re going to dabble in a combination of the right people and technology to make this possible.  We started beta testing our first Circle a couple weeks ago, and expect this will grow into something spectacular (this one is private for now).
• Membership: We’re redefining what it means to be a member, and wiping the current membership  list clean.  We’re still finalizing the details, but membership will likely pertain to Circles only, and not PSL at-large.  Stay tuned.
• Happy Hours: Our next happy hour will be after the Founder Factory on November 17th.  Then we plan to suspend the monthly happy hours until further notice.  We recommend that startup enthusiasts attend the Philly Tech Meetup if you’re looking for your monthly fix of mingling with startup people.
• Big Events: We will continue to hold our large-scale events that the public has come to know and love over the years.  This includes the Founder Factory (next month!), Entrepreneur Expo, and the Summer BBQ.

This is just the first step in the evolution of the new PSL.  These pave the way for a better organization that addresses the needs that exist today rather than those that existed 4 years ago.  Over the years we’ve been proud to call ourselves the largest and most active community of startup entrepreneurs, but we’re all questioning whether that is actually a good thing.  It’s clear that the Philly community already has plenty of breadth, and so we’re going to focus on supplying depth.

Read more on phillystartupleaders.org.