VC Roundup: Philly is home to 2 of the most active VC firms in U.S., DreamIt open for applications

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

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has released its Q4 MoneyTree report, complete with regional data showing Philly bouncing back from a disappointing Q3 with $142 million being invested in 28 deals, mostly in medical and biotechnology. See all the deals listed here. Silicon Valley continues its rebound with $2.2 billion of investment, nearly four times the next closet metro area. In total dollars invested, Philly ranks 12th out of 17 markets.

If you ever wonder why there is so much First Round and BFTP news on Technically Philly, its probably because First Round Capital and Ben Franklin Technology Partners were ranked the forth and 19th most active VC firms in the nation by Dow Jones VentureSource, respectively. The Wall Street Journal points out that the average age of firms on the list is 24, while First Round Capital is only six years old. Meanwhile, BFTP/SEP announced it has invested nearly $1 million in five local companies.

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Report: Philly venture capital investment dips in Q3, Silicon Valley nears normalcy

Last quarter, we celebrated the fact that Philly had the nation’s largest quarter-over-quarter increase in venture capital in the U.S. Thanks to a small number of high priced deals, we saw the local VC market jump nearly 500 percent.

So, could Philly keep the upward momentum into this quarter?

Not so much.

According to the most recent Pricewaterhouse Coopers MoneyTree report, the Philadelphia region’s VC market has seen a significant dip in third quarter investment.

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Shop Talk: A detailed look at Philly’s Q2 venture capital numbers

In our last post about VC numbers, we told you, fair reader, that no region experienced growth like Philadelphia. Though to be clear, that growth was mostly because of three mega deals. We also told you that more detailed numbers were expected from PricewaterhouseCoopers on August 3rd.

Well, we would never leave you hanging.

We dove into the numbers and pulled out the important parts, such as which Philly firms were busiest this quarter, the Philadelphia companies receiving the most investment and what industry received the most attention.

Follow past the jump for your quarterly dose of our regions venture capital activity.
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Report: Philly had nation’s largest increase in VC investment in Q2

We at Technically Philly love July.

Not because this is the month we celebrate the birthplace of our nation (Ed.: In the birthplace of our nation) or because we get to travel to the Jersey Shore. No, because we’re amped for the second quarter regional venture capital numbers.

If you recall, last quarter was abysmal for the region and the rest of the country as VC investment slowed to a near halt. Some declared a sort of VC armageddon.

This quarter, the national numbers went the only direction they could have: Up.

In the aggregate, the national venture capital outlook only received a modest bump in the second quarter with some regions growing faster than others. But no region saw growth like Philadelphia.

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Shop Talk: Bill Jefferis of Evolve IP

Sometime in 2007, the founders of Wayne-based Evolve IP sat down for a brainstorming session to name their new company. They thought that the name should play off of the concept that business communication services should evolve to the next generation. They believed that business IP services were scattered amongst companies, when most businesses would prefer a single solution.

A few glasses of Cabernet later,  someone scribbled “evolve” on a cocktail napkin that now hangs framed in the company’s lobby.

Evolve burst on to the scene in 2007, raising an unheard of $15.4 million in financing from private entities. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, it was the largest information technology investment in Philadelphia since 2001.

The company, which has over 50 employees on its payroll, has lived up to that original brainstorming session. It now offers a one stop shop for business communications such as hosted applications and telephony. Now, small-to-medium businesses can avoid spreading their resources over a handful of small companies.

“You can get a patchwork quilt of five or six different vendors …[but] if you come to Evolve IP you have that single point of contact,” said Bill Jefferis, the company’s Vice President of Marketing & Business Development. “The secret sauce is integrating them all together, writing easy to use user interfaces, having a support center of people and scaling to make the price point compelling and attractive.”

Because of its everything-under-one-roof philosophy, Evolve IP has been growing steadily. Currently, the company offers business communications services to 200 businesses with over 9,000 users and it has its eyes on expansion. After the jump, find out how Evolve makes sure it provides uninterrupted service to customers and how the homegrown company plans to take over the rest of the East coast’s IP needs.
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Shop Talk: Philly’s Venture Capital market with PWC and DreamIt

Last week, along with the usual oh-my-God-I’m going-to-be-homeless economics news came word that venture capital funding has plunged 50 percent in year over year first quarter numbers.

The numbers, courtesy of a PricewaterhouseCoopers Money Tree report, had a few people mulling the end of venture capital as we know it. But Technically Philly isn’t as concerned with Silicon Valley as we are with local numbers. Has the the local venture capital market fallen off a cliff, as national numbers indicate?

Join us as we whip out some charts, talk to a few people much smarter than we are and assess the situation. After the jump, find out what is affecting our local VC market and why one investor says business has never been better.
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