GoodCompany Ventures launches with ten, asks DreamIt to play kickball

Edit: Removed information from an old press release.

GoodCompany Ventures, the Center City-based incubator focusing on companies that are not only profitable but also fulfill societal needs, kicked off its 2010 Social Impact Incubator class this week. According to a press release, Mayor Nutter was on hand to begin the summer for ten new companies.

GoodCompany operates much like University City-based DreamIT Ventures (which it challenged to a kickball game): after a summer of incubation, the companies are presented at a “funding day.”

The incubator, co-founded by Garret Melby, Jacob Gray and Christopher Bentley, adds an an ever-growing group socially-conscience entrepreneurial organizations in the region which already include Bcorp, Murex Investments and Missioneurs.

Follow us after the jump to see the complete list of companies:

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Startup Roundup: Wharton-backed NearVerse raises $1 million in funding, Viddler developing for HTML5

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

NearVerse, which develops LoKast [iTunes] a proximity-based social network with Wharton talent backing it, has raised $1 million from Meakem Becker Venture Capital, TechCrunch reports. The funds will be used to look beyond wireless 3G and 4G network connectivity.

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Startup Roundup: Invite Media real-time ad buys, ListenLogic social media monitoring, Happy Cog not bored

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. Several of the tips in this week’s roundups resulted from a quick email to TP. Without further ado….

Updated 2/3, 12:26 p.m.: Rick O’Brien is SemperCon’s founder, not Max Sobol.

DEFINITE READS

Rittenhouse-based Invite Media, which suffered some setbacks early last year while in stealth mode, announced its real-time bidding platform for online display advertisements, partnering with AdBrite, AdMeld and PubMatic, according to a press release. Ad news org AdExchanger interviewed COO Nat Turner about the announcement. Turner is pretty excited about the development: “While there are frankly way too many ways to slice and dice and compare results given all of the factors present in display [advertising], there truly is a huge performance increase that can be garnered by [real-time bidding],” he says.

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Technically Not Tech: PlaySay digital language learning flash cards

PlaySay founder Ryan Meinzer had always wanted to work in Japan.

So, the 26-year-old Temple University business grad packed his bags and headed for the island with a degree in international business and entrepreneurship and minors in Japanese and Asian business.

After landing a marketing gig, his 14-hour work days left little time to grasp the language to the degree that he wanted; he couldn’t enroll in classes or sign-up for comprehensive language learning software.

“I was so so busy and I never had time to study. I needed to learn fast,” Meinzer says.

So, he decided to put together his own lesson plans. He eschewed text book and flash cards for their bulk and created virtual audio flashcards for his iPod using podcast-esque technologies. MP3 files are backed with digital ‘flash cards’—audio files with images of the word being spoken.

And without knowing it, he embarked on a business.
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