Technically Philly is a news site covering technology, startups and venture capital in Philadelphia.
Over the past two days, we’ve previewed five of the fourteen DreamIt companies in detail as a preview to the incubator’s Demo Day event on August 11th.
There are nine other companies that didn’t wish to demo products to Technically Philly, but we still dug up some basic facts to prepare you for their launch.
Thanks to DreamIt’s partnership with Startl, the remaining companies are a diverse blend of education tools and web applications worthy of a look.
In 2011, Code for America will select five developers to work in Philadelphia for a year to create applications that improve how city government connects with residents.
As we reported in our Q&A with Mayor Nutter, the grant comes as the city is getting serious about technology, elevating the CTO to a cabinet-level position while investing $120 million in the Division of Technology.
At today’s Supernova conference, we caught up with Code for America’s City Program Director Alissa Black to ask her about the program’s timeline, how she’s measuring success and why Philadelphia was selected as one of CFA’s inaugural cities.
David Cohen (left) is interview by Supernova Hub organizer Kevin Werbach
According to what David Cohen says, Comcast isn’t worried about the shift to online video.
In fact, he says, the company is welcoming it — enough so that the future of online video has become the dominant conversation surrounding the company’s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal. Regulators are a wreck over what the merger might mean for moving pictures on the web, but Comcast maintains that the deal would stimulate, not stifle, competition.
During his keynote interview at today’s Superniva Hub conference, Comcast’s Executive Vice President answered a wide range of questions about his company’s merger with NBCU and privacy concerns (see our Q and A with him here).
“People often don’t realize how large Comcast is,” said Cohen adding that NBCU will only be 20 percent of Comcast.
But Cohen’s main focus was Xfinity and its role in content creation. Below, hear why Cohen and Comcast aren’t concerned about the shift to online video.
Demo Day previews:
Part One : Giveloop, Adapt.ly, Yunno
Part Two: 8tysix, Campus Sponsorship
Part Three : The rest
Edited: Corrected Campus Sponsorship details.
In part two of our DreamIt Demo Day preview series, we preview two companies that continue a noticeable trend in this year’s DreamIt class: the reliance on social networks for user acquisition.
With the exception of Adapt.ly and Giveloop, all of the companies previewed yesterday lean heavily on Facebook to create a frictionless login service and to help promote user actions to friends and these two companies are no different.
After the jump, read our previews of 8tysix and Campus Sponsorship to get you ready for August 11th and see which company told us that its site has “double rainbow possibility.”
Edit: added beta code for Adapt.ly
This year, it’s different.
For the past three summers Dreamit Ventures has incubated early-stage startups at the University City Science Center, giving each startup a small bit of seed capital while providing advice from some of the brightest entrepreneurial minds in the city.
Startups like SCVNGR, Seatgeek and Notehall all have roots in the incubator.
This year, DreamIt upped the ante by partnering with Brooklyn-based Startl to incubate more companies than ever and DreamIt is starting to receive national attention as one of the best early stage technology incubators in the country.
Demo Day previews:
Part One : Giveloop, Adapt.ly, Yunno
Part Two: 8tysix, Campus Sponsorship
Part Three : The rest
“One barometer [for the city] is DreamIt,” says Gil Beyda, founder of an early stage technology-focused venture capital firm Genacast Ventures. “Year after year, I’ve seen better companies and better entrepreneurs coming out of there.”
The first two DreamIt seasons culminated in Demo Day, an all-day event where companies show off their wares in the hopes of attracting attention and investment — see last year’s coverage — and that much will stay the same this year when the companies gather on August 11th.
Technically Philly stopped by the incubator last week to get a sneak peak of what some of the companies are working on, and five of 14 were ready to offer a small preview of what they will be presenting.
In the first of three parts, we look at Yunno, Adapt.ly and Give Loop. Tomorrow we will preview two additional companies and on Friday we’ll round up those who didn’t demo their product for us.
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.
DEFINITE READS
Edit: Kerry Rupp clears up a few facts in the comments below.
DreamIt Ventures gets a feature in this month’s Forbes focusing on managing partners Steven Welch, Kerry Rupp, Michael Levinson and David Book. The story provides a digestible overview for those not familiar with the University City Science Center-based business incubator and provides lots of numbers and personal backstory for those more knowledgeable about the program. The most surprising fact uncovered by Forbes: none of the companies incubated by DreamIt have turned a profit. Look out for our Demo Day preview on Wednesday to get a sneak peak at some of the companies in this year’s class.
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After months of speculation, The Inquirer’s Michael Klein is reporting that Philadelphia’s first Apple Store will be opening on Friday.
The first 1,000 vistors will receive a free t-shirt so keep a look out for news reports of John Street waiting in line.
As we’ve been reporting, 1607 Walnut got a storefront on July 14th and has been hiring since December.
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.
DEFINITE READS
Philly Tech News is reporting that First Round Capital has invested in locally-based advertising company AdCopy, the company that inserts advertising into CAPTCHAs. Though we can’t verify it anywhere else, our friends at PTN are typically on point, so keep an eye out.
We’re a bit late on this, but Safeguard Scientifics’ Kevin Kemmerer extrapolates on one of the questions asked by Technically Philly during his Q&A earlier this month. Kemmerer, EVP and managing director of Safeguard technology group, explains why Safeguard, a publicly traded company, is different than other VC firms.
Ben Franklin Technology Partners has invested nearly $1.8 million in nine local companies. Read our complete coverage here.
First Round receives praise for thinking ahead in this Silicon Alley Insider piece about the current and future state of venture capital. If you’re new to private equity, we highly suggest you give it a read.
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Gabe Weinberg of Duck Duck Go and Hacker Angels.
Many computer programmers can piece together a functional web application in days. Dealing with investors for their new creation? That’s another story.
Hacker Angels, an informal group of angel investors that includes local entrepreneur and Duck Duck Go founder Gabriel Weinberg, is challenging the conventional wisdom that successful startups need at least one founder with business experience to be successful.
The group has already received coverage in ReadWriteWeb, among other places and hopes to mentor technically-minded founders as they wade through the often complicated and insider-y world of tech angel investing.
Update: removed company names.
If you’ve ever kept a cheat sheet or post-it note by your desk to help you navigate your company’s bloated software, Electronic Ink wants to help.
“A lot of software is given to coders without any consideration of the end user and how they want to use the application,” says Jim Richardson VP of business development at Electronic Ink and a Temple grad.
Electronic Ink, located a stone’s throw from City Hall, is a design firm that helped IBM design OS/2 and helped Citibank create and design the first ATM machines.
“Think about it,” says Richardson of the design challenges posed by ATMS, “getting people to move from the bank lobby to the corner without any training [is remarkable].”
The company of roughly 100 employees specializes in helping businesses simplify applications and software, often through simple design tweaks to help end users stop from pulling their hair out and to help save companies money. The company has racked up hundreds of clients since its early days of ATM design.
We chatted with Richardson about making financial markets safer through design, saving one utility company millions and why his firm plans to no longer be Philadelphia’s best kept secret.
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