Links: Chris Cera talks regional entrepreneurship, TL Ventures fighting and More

DEFINITE READS

• Innovation Philadelphia interviews developer, entrepreneur, Philly Startup Leaders hound and Kingsessing Park-basketball hustler Chris Cera. He talks about the region and its startup scene. Our only beef? West Philly certainly isn’t a single neighborhood. Ask folks living in University City, Haddington, Clark Park, Overbrook, Mantua, Walnut Hill and the rest.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reports that TL Ventures, the region’s largest VC fund during the dot-com era, is now focused squarely on in-fighting.
• Enterprise Matters on a ‘new’ SAP, the software behemoth.

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Shop Talk: Vuzit grows up

A little more than a year after graduating from DreamIt Ventures, document sharing site Vuzit is growing up.

“It’s feeling less and less like a startup everyday,” says CTO Chris Cera.

The company has hired its first non-founder employee, a sales person to help expand sales, and has recently released the 3.0 version of its DocuPub Platform. As a result, the company is having to rapidly add and plan features while trying to keep its service humming along smoothly.

After the jump we take a look at what makes Vuzit tick, some new features of 3.0 and the super secret deal Vuzit has up its sleeve.
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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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