Friday Q&A: Kevin Kemmerer of Safeguard Scientifics

Updated: Corrected numbers, general edits.

Of the many investment firms in Philadelphia, there is no one quite like Safeguard Scientifics.

In Internet years the company is ancient. Founded in 1953,  one of its early investments was Jerrold Electronics, a company that eventually saw its cable operations bought out by Ralph Roberts to become a little company named “Comcast.” Since then, the company has been a staple of the local investment community surviving the Web 1.0 days to emerge stronger than ever. Since 2006, Safeguard has invested $175 million.

While most firms receive money from private individuals with tight strings attached,  Safeguard is one of the small handful of firms to be publicly traded. Being publicly traded allows the company to be much more patient with its 17 partner companies, avoiding situations like the recent Zappos deal where the company’s investors forced it to sell to Amazon.

But Safeguard is most proud of what it calls its “operating platform”: a series of legal, administrative and operational services to help its investments quickly grow revenue.

We chatted with Kevin Kemmerer, EVP and managing director of Safeguard’s technology group about investing locally, the company’s much-respected “operating platform” and what entrepreneurs can do to get Safeguard’s attention.

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Friday Tech Links: Our life sciences sector rocks, the Commodore and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

Our region’s life sciences sector ranked first in the “current impact” category, and second overall (to Boston, bah), in a biotechnology industry study conducted by the Milken Institute, according to a report by the Philadelphia Business Journal’s John George, a proud graduate from Temple University-Ambler. As we earlier suggested, this is really one of the more impactful, meaningful and substantiated stupid lists Philadelphia has been put in during recent years.

That news preceded the announcement of one of the year’s largest life sciences venture capital deals happening here. University City’s Avid Radiopharmaceuticals scored a $34.5 million financing, led by a San Francisco VC firm, but assisted by a couple of local boys, BioAdvance, also a Penn neighbor, and Safeguard Scientifics of Wayne, as also reported by George of PBJ.

California tries to ban violent video games for kids, a (sorta) regional Web site management company makes a big aquisition and a lot of messed up Craigslist stories you should read — in addition to our most trafficked post of the week — after the jump.

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