DreamIt Ventures Demo Day preview (part two)

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.”

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Startup Roundup: Local angle to Twitter’s Fail Whale; NuPathe sets IPO terms

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse 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 the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

LTL Prints has been racking up partners weekly, according to the deluge of press releases we get, but that’s why not why we’re playing this one. The Old City-based wall graphics company has an interview with Twitter’s Fail Whale creator — and LTL featured artist — Yiying Lu. It’s not about failure at all:”I wanted to create a visual greeting – a visual ‘comfort’ for my friends back home for all the events that I was missing,” Lu says. Check it out if not for the story, for the original sketches.

Conshocken-based biotech firm NuPathe — read our Q&A with the company, which is developing a migraine treatment patch, here — has set the terms for the debut of its initial public offering, at between $14 and $16 per share, hoping to raise $75 million with the offering.

We’re way psyched to see this one come through the pipeline: ZVRS, a company which is taking advantage of iPhone 4′s Facetime to provide translation services for the hearing impaired launched launched at Hard Rock in Center City. Remember that, ahem, social entrepreneurship thing here in Philly we’ve been writing and talking with folks about? Yeah, cough. It’s happening.

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VC Roundup: DreamIt in Forbes Magazine

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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Startup Roundup: QlikTech debuts IPO, augmented soccer for iOS4 for World Cup blues

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse 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 the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Radnor’s QlikTech launched its initial public offering last week, selling 11.2 million shares at $10 each, an initial market capitalization of $940 million, Seeking Alpha reports [h/t/ PhillyTechNews]

We love this. Local Laan Labs has created an augmented reality soccer game that lets you use an iOS4 camera to kick a ball around. Great for soccer wanna-be’s.

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Startup Roundup: Baltimore visits Philly, RailBandit updates NJ Transit offering, TrapCall supporting Sprint

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse 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. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Baltimore coworking space BeeHive visited IndyHall last week, according to the Philly coworking site’s newsletter. And at IndyHall’s weekly Show & Tell lunch meetup, several startups showed off their goods, like MyClin which claims to “revolutionize clinical trials,” and Johnny Bilotta‘s UI prototyping software for Photoshop and Illustrator.

We’ve received word from Ignite Philly 5 organizers about some of the speakers set for the March 2 event at Johnny Brenda’s. We’ve got limited details, and organizers anticipate changes in the schedule, but so far, Asheesh Laroia of OpenHatch will talk about food trucks and open source, Philly Startup Leaders‘ Blake Jennelle will discuss startups and nonprofit survival, Mike Levinson of DreamIt will offer ideas “that make it (and don’t),” and Happier.com Founder Andrew J. Rosenthal will tell you, mysteriously enough, “how to get people to like you.” Thank god for that.

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Friday Q&A: Steve Barsh, CEO of Packlate.com

Update: Minor copy edits. Changed logo.

As reported in this week’s Venture Capital Roundup, Steve Barsh has had a busy week.

The DreamIt Ventures managing partner got his tons of national press for his latest startup, Packlate.com, from TechCrunch, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. The company, based in University City (though with plans to move to West Conshohocken) aims to be a last-minute vacation booking service and has received funding from ETF Ventures and First Round Capital.

“It’s not a rocket ship yet, but it is kind of jiggling on the launchpad,” says Barsh.

Barsh says the idea has been brewing for years as he mentored young entrepreneurs at DreamIt while maintaining vacation properties in Utah.

“You know the saying ‘Those who do, do. And those who don’t, teach? I like to do both,” he says.

Currently he says he is still dedicating ten percent of his time to DreamIt but says he wants to focus most of his efforts on his new startup. We spoke with Barsh about Packlate’s future, how DreamIt can survive with preoccupied management and when we’ll be able to book a Jersey Shore vacation with Packlate.

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Startup Roundup: D.C.’s startup soul offers lessons, DreamIT-backed SCVNGR growing strong, TicketLeap redesigns

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse 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. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Philly Startup Leader Founder Blake Jennelle writes long-form about Washington D.C.’s “startup soul,” after taking in the scene there earlier this month. There’s a lot for Philly to learn from it’s neighbor to the south, Jennelle says, and we’ve got much in common. Like Philly, growth comes from the grassroots, but D.C. lacks a central community of entrepreneurs. And our brethren know Philadelphia. “The reputation of [Philly's] creative communities is strong,” he writes.

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VC Roundup: Packlate.com raises cash, DreamIt teams up with NYC accelerator

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

DreamIt Ventures has partnered with 67th Ward-based startup accelerator program Startl to accept five companies into this summer’s DreamIt program.

University City Science Center-based vacation rental service Packlate.com has raised $650,000 from local firms First Round Capital and ETF Ventures. The company’s CEO is DreamIt co-founder Steve Barsh, who also got his car dug out by a backhoe this week.

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VC Roundup: Is VC ready for its turnaround?

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

According to the VCs assembled in New Jersey for the New Jersey Technology Council conference, VC activity is primed to heat up in the coming months. Bala Cynwyd-based Osage Partners was among the local firms in attendance. “If you can survive the last three years, then you have something,” said one attendee.

Ben Franklin Technology Partner has anounced nearly $600,000 in investment, including $50,000 going to Viddler. If you remember, Viddler told us in October: “We’re done funding.”

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners: Budget cuts would “unravel” local startup support

Ben Franklin Technology Partners is keeping a close eye on the state budget.

For the past five weeks, Pennsylvania has been operating without a budget as state legislators wrestle between a 16 percent income tax increase and cuts in state spending, among other points of contention between the Democratically-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate.

As a result, state employees are no longer being paid, and expired unemployment benefits are not receiving an extension (though a tiny no-frills emergency budget may pass soon).

Caught up in the hurricane of the state budget debate is BFTP, a state-funded early stage investment group that could see its budget slashed by up to 60 percent. The organization is now asking its constituents to help push their state legislator to keep the group’s funding levels intact.

Otherwise, a cut to the funding to BFTP could have a dramatic impact on the city and the region.

And if you’re a reader of Technically Philly, that probably means you.

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