VC Roundup: Wharton competes and the city gets $25 million

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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

The New York Times was all over the Wharton Business Plan Competition this year. The Old Gray Lady said that life sciences were all the rage, though business services company Cortical Concepts won the $20,000 grand prize. As we know, $20,000 to a Wharton student is like $100 to the rest of us.

DreamIt Ventures is a week away from its “kickoff weekend.” But a few lawyer-types are jumping the gun tonight with the Law Firm Kickoff. The free event plans to explore how law firms will work with the incubated companies.

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Comcast Roundup: Inqy helps bring Phillies baseball to retirement home, NBC Sports is pissed and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

Ninety-four-year old Jessie Foyle probably wouldn’t get a personal patch into her beloved Phillies games from Comcast if not for old media, it might be fair to guess.

The “legendary” fan now lives in a city retirement home that has a subscription with DirecTV, which doesn’t send nearly as many televised games from the Phightins as the ‘Cast, but, as Inquirer columnist Dan Rubin wrote last week, Taylor got some special treatment after he wrote a column early this month about her dilemma.

Six residents and four guests showed up for the first showing against the Cubs, Rubin reported, after Comcast wired the home so they could get all the Phillies games.

“We made an exception with [her retirement home],” Jeff Alexander, a Comcast spokesman, told Rubin. “We took into consideration the fact that Mrs. Foyle is such a legendary fan and the property was quick to partner with us.”

Rubin, a newspaperman of the truest order and a Hell of a columnist to boot, brought the popcorn.

After the jump, more Comcast iPhone app buzz, ESPNU on board and eight more Comcast stories for the faithful.

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Bala Cynwyd firm PC Helps Support gets New York Times praise

It’s been 17 years, but PC Helps Support is still around and getting attention for it.

The Bala Cynwyd-based IT support company has 250 Montgomery County-based consultants in an industry known for outsourcing to places like India, where labor is cheaper, knowledgeable and trainable.

It’s small operation is geared toward focused services, like answering questions that Apple users have about their iPhones, and it appears to be a method that’s working, according to a glowing profile in Friday’s New York Times.

PC Helps, founded in 1992 by Jeffrey Becker, offers expertise on more than 160 desktop applications and mobile devices like Microsoft Office, the BlackBerry and, yes, the iPhone. It works in conjunction with a company’s IT department to augment or even serve as a company’s help desk to offer support, the company’s media kit says.

In March, the company launched a blog and is, of course, all about social media: follow them on Twitter, friend them on Facebook and LinkedIn, or subscribe to their RSS feed.