VC Roundup: NuPathe IPO, no more DreamIt Ventures

Welcome to the VC Roundup, 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

Later today, look out for the emerging details about Philly Mag’s story on Guggenheim Ventures.

Technically Philly wasn’t the only publication to write about DreamIt Demo Day, a handful of other publications also weighed in. In a guest post by DreamIt partner Mike Levinson, TechCrunch takes a very black and white approach offering short paragraphs about every company. PhillyInc looks at DreamIt in perspective of the larger economic climate and the Philadelphia Business Journal focuses more on Startl’s relationship with DreamIt. Of course, you can always look at our three-post Demo Day preview series, our awards post for Demo Day and our collection of videos and pictures from the big day. The DreamIt companies are packing up a leaving the Science Center this week.

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Josh Kopelman called ‘richest man in town,’ among most networked venture capitalist

Josh Kopelman is apparently not entirely comfortable with being a big shot.

The entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, who made his name on the back of the $355 million sale of his creation Half.com to eBay in 2000, has been a bit of a big fish in an underdeveloped Philadelphia pond for some time now. But he doesn’t always take adulation so warmly.

Kopelman was reportedly put off by the label of the wealthiest self-made person in Philadelphia, author W. Randall Jones told the Inquirer. For his new book, the Richest Man in Town, Jones traveled to 100 U.S. cities to collect business wisdom from those atop the income brackets in their towns and found Kopelman to be our pick of the litter.

“He was very upset with me,” Jones told the Inqy.

While Kopelman may have disliked the thought of being placed above a host of the city’s billionaire’s boys club, it’s not the only big call he’s gotten this week.

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Friday Q&A: Ben and Kelly LeDonni of Adography

Philly-based Adography's new look

At your typical startup, the founders will often have to go through the trouble of hiring an outside public relations firm. That is, unless you are computer developer Ben LeDonni, in which case you can just shout across the house to ask your wife.

Ben, along with his wife Kelly, a public relations representative, joined forces to work on Adography, a site that connects amateur photographers with companies looking for specific candid photos to be featured in advertising materials. A company might place a request for, say, a mother hitting her head on a van steering wheel. Photographers submit their photos, and advertisers can pay a fee to the photographer ranging from $20 to $100 with Adography taking a ten percent cut.

Thus far, the couple has bootstrapped the entire operation, and they are beginning to pick up some momentum. In February, the site was featured on TechCrunch and, subsequently, Digg. The site is growing with nearly 500 users and recently, the couple has been hard at work on a new redesign (pictured above) that will unroll a bunch of new features such as Flickr integration.

We sat down with Kelly and Ben to ask them how many users they have, what was it like getting featured on TechCrunch and how a boogey board spurred their entrepreneurial spirit.
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