DEFINITE READS

• The Philadelphia Daily News reports that a second Lower Merion student has sued the school district over the webcam controversy.
• KYW reports on a Northern Liberties cell phone-photography art collection.
• ABC News reports on a trend of more websites selling class notes to students, including former DreamIT Ventures participant Notehall.com.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Washington Post tech columnist Cecilia Kang has a Q&A with University of Pennsylvania Professor Joseph Turow about online privacy.
• Society Hill’s own Science Cheerleader Darlene Cavalier guest blogs for Discover magazine on the origination of the BP oil leak cap.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that University City nonprofit biomedical research center Wistar Institute is planning a major new expansion.
• The Business Journal also reports that Peco and the University City Science Center are partnering to showcase digital artists on Peco’s Center City headquarters the first Friday of every month.
• The Business Journal also reports that CoverSports USA, the Kingsessing-based manufacturer of protective covers, has expanded — but is staying in Philadelphia with its 67 employees.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

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

Edit: Kerry Rupp clears up a few facts in the comments below.

DreamIt Ventures gets a feature in this month’s Forbes focusing on managing partners Steven Welch, Kerry Rupp, Michael Levinson and David Book. The story provides a digestible overview for those not familiar with the University City Science Center-based business incubator and provides lots of numbers and personal backstory for those more knowledgeable about the program. The most surprising fact uncovered by Forbes: none of the companies incubated by DreamIt have turned a profit. Look out for our Demo Day preview on Wednesday to get a sneak peak at some of the companies in this year’s class.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Movitas Mobile has raised $3 million from a yet-to-named source. In March we reported on SEC filings that indicated the company was gunning for $2.7 million. Movitas, if you remember, was also behind the acquisition of PhindMe Mobile a mobile development company based out of Drexel University.

Our good friend Christopher McDemus – aka the VC Deal Lawyer – has a comprehensive write up on the impact of the recently passed Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The act has been widely covered for its reform of our nation’s financial system and McDemus helps liberal arts majors like us understand the impact the reforms will have on private equity.

GIVE A GLANCE

Pop City reports that Pittsburgh has seen a comeback in VC numbers. Fueled by Innovation Works, the Steel City startups closed deals at a four-year high.

DreamIt vet Seatgeek has received $1 million in funding for its ticket price predicting service.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners continues handing out checks, this time to clean technology companies. Though the $361,000 in investments is not nearly as large as the $1.8 million it invested earlier this month.

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

We’re not sure how we missed this one, but nearly a dozen local well-known groups have come together to host an event with the American Society of Inventors, tonight at the University City Science Center, to talk about how to launch a successful entrepreneurial venture. We’d list all the organizations here, but gosh that’s a lot of text. Trust us, you know about ‘em. And it’s free, people.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Corporate event-planning and management system StarCite, which we’ve covered in the past, has announced in a press release that it has been awarded a patent for its suite of SAAS software, patent number 7,523,385. Rest easy, VP Kevin Young. After all, the previous 7,523,384 patents were all awarded to Apple.

GIVE A GLANCE

VentureHacks tells you how to land a meeting with an investor by way of email. Read: Don’t be an idiot.

Alex Hillman announced at SXSW last week that he, with financial help from Grasshoper—a virtual phone service and entrepreneur empowerment resource—has launched an online book curration initiative to pen The Coworking Book. [Full Disclosure: Hillman is a TP sponsor]

Chatroulette scares us to death. We’re of the mind that it truly does signify the end of the Internet. But rather than get all philosophical on you, let’s talk hard numbers. RJMetrics—who damn well knows how to ride a trend—has some great data about what you’re likely to see in the average random video encounter. You’ve got a one in eight chance to see some R-rated action and an 89 percent chance it’ll be a dude deciding what that action is. Good times.

Startup Roundup will post weekly on Wednesdays until there’s not a Philly startup story left to link to on the Internet. See others here.

Update: Minor copy edits. Changed logo.

As reported in this week’s Venture Capital Roundup, Steve Barsh has had a busy week.

The DreamIt Ventures managing partner got his tons of national press for his latest startup, Packlate.com, from TechCrunch, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. The company, based in University City (though with plans to move to West Conshohocken) aims to be a last-minute vacation booking service and has received funding from ETF Ventures and First Round Capital.

“It’s not a rocket ship yet, but it is kind of jiggling on the launchpad,” says Barsh.

Barsh says the idea has been brewing for years as he mentored young entrepreneurs at DreamIt while maintaining vacation properties in Utah.

“You know the saying ‘Those who do, do. And those who don’t, teach? I like to do both,” he says.

Currently he says he is still dedicating ten percent of his time to DreamIt but says he wants to focus most of his efforts on his new startup. We spoke with Barsh about Packlate’s future, how DreamIt can survive with preoccupied management and when we’ll be able to book a Jersey Shore vacation with Packlate.

As always, edited for length and clarity.

How long have you been working on Packlate? This seemed to come out of nowhere.

I’ve had rental property in Park City, Utah for about ten years and I’ve had this idea for Packlate for the last five. I’ve been kind of doing it on my own for my two condos and when I was doing DreamIt this summer, talking to all these entrepreneurs about de-risking, I was working on Packlate as kind of my “20 percent time.”

A bunch of investors in the Philly area told me I cant de-risk it anymore without cash so they told me “Build it into a company and we’ll fund it.”

We started the company on September 1st. Within three months it was funded and within five months it was in the market. We went really fast… We just wanted to get it out there and see how people reacted.

Steve Barsh, CEO of Packlate

How are people reacting?

Traffic is surging because we keep getting PR. We keep bringing more servers online, so it’s a good problem to have. I said at our first board meeting this week: “If anyone was wondering, we are at revenue.”

So we are getting bookings and generating money. Not a lot, but its a great signal. We’re really pleased.

It’s only for the Rockies now?

[Advisor and StubHub.com founder] Colin Evans hounded on me this summer and said “If you launch nationwide, you’re going to be 3,000 miles wide and a quarter of an inch deep.” You won’t be a marketplace. It would be like walking into the Barnes and Noble and seeing two books in the fiction section. Which means you don’t have a fiction section.

We’ll expand in the spring and summer for other markets.

So I can book the Jersey shore pretty soon?

I hope so. There are a lot of markets we want to open up in.

To switch gears, are you involved in this year’s DreamIt class?

I’m not focused exclusively on Packlate but I am focused extensively on Packlate. I usually teach part-time at Wharton, I’m not doing that this semester.

With DreamIt it will be a very light participation, I’ll do some mentoring, I’ll do a talk, but I won’t be full-time. I can’t do both. If I do both, I’ll do both poorly.

If Packlate takes off, do you see yourself pulling out of DreamIt?

I’ll always have ten percent of my time for DreamIt. To really do both of these things, you have to throw yourself at them.

What’s the next step for Packlate?

We’re refining in our current market and trying to get all of our metrics up and to the right. More booking, more people watching and driving more traffic. We have an idea coming out in the next week that I hope will be completely crushing to the vacation rental industry, which is fun.

Are you worried about the future of DreamIT? You have Packlate, Steve Welsh is running for congress and David Bookspan runs Monetate?

DreamIt is in great hands. They are moving at 100 miles per hour whether I’m involved or not. DreamIt is doing well and is well-backed and it will stay that way.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia’s technology community. See others here.

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.

DEFINITE READS

P’unk Ave will launch the first version of its open-source Apostrophe content management system on Wednesday. The developer says that the CMS has been used for several of its clients, including Duke University, Kiberton Waldorf School and the Environmental Management Assistance Program. We’ve wrote about the CMS in this roundup before, and after talks with co-founder Geoff DiMasi, we think the team is playing its release pretty low-key for the quality of the product. It might be DiMasi’s punk rock roots—ask him about seeing Fugazi back in the day.

Orpheus Media Research, developer of music analysis tool Clio, says in an to Technically Philly that after reaching out to investors with its full business plan, the new company has been “aggressive in reaching out to major industry players,” and is in partnership talks with two large content partners and three “household name” corporations for technology and funding. Additionally, after reducing its funding requirements, it is now seeking private equity partnerships with angel firms as opposed to venture capital. Get on that, investors.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Proton Media has published a case study about energy giant BP, which says it calculated $3.7 million in savings using Proton’s virtual reality conference setting as opposed to a physical three-day event.

The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that investor-backed drug maker Cephalon will buy pharma firm Mepha AG of Switzerland for $599 million, doubling the Frazer, Pennsylvania-based company’s international business.

GIVE A GLANCE

Next Fab Studio has announced its corporate rates after launching its prototyping space at the University City Science Center last month. It’s $300 per month for two employees, $600 per month for five or $1,500 for 10 employees. Companies could make that money back in custom-embroidered aprons alone.

Start Philly features Rittenhouse-based Venmo, a mobile payment service. After only a few months, the company has grown to thousands of users, founder Igram Magdon-Ismail says.

If interactive maps get you hot and bothered anything like they do us at Technically Philly, dig Avencia‘s explanation of the nitty gritty behind putting together the Philadelphia Water Department Stormwater Map Viewer.

Startup Roundup will post weekly on Wednesdays until there’s not a Philly startup story left to link to on the Internet.

The Penn State grad founded the Mitos Group, a biotech company that grew to over 40 employees before it was sold to a Fortune 500 company when Welch was 29. Welch then co-founded DreamIt ventures, an early-stage incubator based in the University City Science Center. And, most recently he just fathered his second child.

But 32-year-old Welch, the new-father-entrepreneur-angel investor, is looking to add another job title to his resume: congressman.

Earlier this month, he launched his candidacy for the 7th congressional district of Pennsylvania with a video on his Web site.

Welch will become the Republican challenger to Democratic representative Joe Sestak. Sestak ultimately may not be his opponent, as he is said to be considering a showdown for the Democratic Senate seat against newly-minted Democrat Arlen Specter.

If elected, he would be the second youngest congressman, behind 28-year-old Aaron Schock (R- Minn.).

True to his past, Welch sees small business as the way out of the recession for the country and for Philadelphia. Welch says the level of spending and government impact on the free market is one of the primary reasons he is running. When we spoke, his second child was still on the way, and the thought that he would be born into debt was a motivation to act.

For the past year, Welch was an Eisenhower Fellow, which allowed him to travel the world taking notes on the best tactics for encouraging small business development.

“In my heart of hearts, I love seeing a need in the marketplace and rushing to fill that need. It’s the greatest rush in the world,” says Welch.

One plan he is fond of, he said, was the tactic of the government matching local early stage investments. That way, firms can decide what is the best investment, and the government can increase the flow of early stage capital with little to no additional labor or bureaucracy.

“We want the best in the world to land in Philadelphia,” he says, “that’s the greatest way to ensure long term success in this region.”

We chatted with Welch about small business in Philadelphia, and the effect of organizations like DreamIt and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

One of the hot issues at the moment, is the future of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, what is your take on their future?

Ben Franklin companies have had a huge impact on this region. Somebody that’s never been in the business doesn’t understand that once that money goes into a Ben Franklin-funded company… Give me a Ben Franklin funded company.

How about Vuzit?

Vuzit! So Vuzit has vendors that are local and that they are spending money with. They have attorneys that they are spending money with. It creates a curculation of funds in the early stage of businesses, which is undeniable. You look at any stat out there and you will see that small businesses create jobs, not big businesses.

That was something that was often tossed around during the presidential election.

Yep. And if you look, the patents filed by small businesses are more relevant, they get cited more often and [generate] more sales revenue. So small business are more innovative and therefore have a greater impact on society … If jobs are the government’s number one priority, [Ben Franklin Technology Partners] is the last thing I would cut.

What role does DreamIt play in fostering small businesses?

We’re very early-stage, we often invest in ideas on a napkin. So they have a long way to grow.

Last year we had several companies that got additional funding and that added jobs in the area and those companies will have a big impact. We are bringing companies here now, and once they are here they are more likely to stay here so they will add jobs to the region.

The 7th district of PA (click to enlarge)

Can you detail how DreamIt works?

We open up the application for a couple of months, this year we received several hundred. We care about what’s the need in the market place, what makes your product different and what makes you think you can do it. If it takes you more than an hour to finish our application, you’re doing it wrong.

We have some companies that are already generating revenue .. and some companies come in and do a 180-degree turn, and that’s great.

How so?

If you find that out fast, good, and you can change directions. And that is one of the things we need as a society. We need risk-taking to occur. We need to see what works and doesn’t work. That’s how you create innovation, that’s how you create new markets and that’s how you create jobs.

In June, partner David King was named to the board of the University City Science Center and the company was profiled in the Wall Street Journal for shifting some of its resources from biotech to medical devices.

The good news continued yesterday when it was announced that Quaker was one of the Series A investors in Rapid Micro Biosystems, a company that makes technology to detect troublesome microbes that can slow down the drug-making process.

When Technically Philly asked for the exact share Quaker BioVentures invested, the company said it does not disclose amounts.

Rapid Micro’s viral detection technology has already been commercialized and the company hopes the additional investment will help it expand to new markets including Europe.

Quaker BioVentures partner Richard Kollender

When unwanted microbes sneak into vats where drugs are being made the effect can be disastrous for large drug companies who often have to shut down production and face supply shortages, according to xconomy. Drug-maker Genzyme may stand to lose $300 million in the wake of its plant shutdown over contaminated vats.

The Boston-based Rapid Micro Biosystems secured $18.6 million from three other investors along with Quaker, including California-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Boston-based TVM Capital and Boston-based VIMAC Milestone Medica Fund; leaving Quaker as the lone local representation in the funding round.

Quaker BioVentures partner Richard Kollender will join the board as part of the deal.

A screenshot of Scribnia's my Scribes feature, to be released tomorrow.

The Web runs on opinion.

We Digg, Stumble, rate and recommend everything from books to blogs and, if Scribnia gets its way, you will be able to add writers to the list.

Scribnia is a University City-based Web site that allows readers to rate and recommend authors, writers and bloggers on a one to ten scale. Users can leave comments and rank authors in categories based on their writing topic. For example, a political writer can be rated as more liberal or conservative, or a tech writer can be rated on a scale of whether they write more for the general public or for tech experts.

“Readers are actually starting not to just read one-off articles on sites like Digg, but [they are] finding authors that they care about and want to come back and read,” said co-founder Russell D’Souza.

The result is a growing database of content creators that can provide users with recommendations based on previous rankings. Rate, say, baseball writer Peter Gammons high and you may be recommended other baseball writers that Peter Gammons fans rated highly. Tomorrow, the site will roll out my Scribes, an RSS reader within Scribnia that will provide author recommendations based upon the feed items the users read.

Scribnia was founded by Boston natives Russell D’Souza and Jack Groetzinger, both 24. The duo made the trip to Philly after receiving funding through DreamIt’s bootcamp program that netted them $20,000 in angel funding as well as a host of pro bono services.

The company of five employees has set up shop in the University City Science Center where it is trying to build its user base after emerging from a private alpha earlier this month with a post on Mashable.

“We had a very strong influx of users [after coming out of the private alpha] and we have managed to keep a lot them,” D’Souza said.

Currently, the PHP-based site claims to have just under 1000 users and 100 “claimed” author profile pages and, starting tomorrow, will roll out its new my Scribes feature that will help users discover new content.

“We wanted to create a way so that once you find an author, you don’t have to click on that author and Google their work, you can see all of their work on Scribnia and read it,” said D’Souza.

The result is a recommendation engine wrapped in an RSS reader where users can rate individual articles using a thumbs up/thumbs down system. My Scribes will then suggest authors based on the posts your rate.

Soon, the site hopes to leverage of its user ranking and comments into a paid premium service that will help bloggers drive traffic. For example, users could submit post topics they want to hear about and bloggers could access this list for a fee, similar to Skribit.

Scribnia will also sell authors information about how be more like the top writers in their niche. For example, the site will evaluate metrics such as pictures per post. Scribnia could then provide the average picture per post for the five highest rated food bloggers. Food bloggers not in the top five could then compare the metrics to their own numbers and adjust the content accordingly.

“We can provide quick, little things that writers can do to improve the number of readers they get,” D’Souza said.

Currently, D’Souza said the company is more focused on building up their user base after moving to Philly for the summer. The company said although none of its employees are from the city, it may consider sticking around.

“We’re here, and we really like it a lot, there is definately a chance we will be here in the long run,” he said. Of course, having the company’s funders here doesn’t hurt, either.

Every Wednesday, Shop Talk shows you what goes into a tech product, organization or business in the Philadelphia region. See others here.

University City incubator and research park the Science Center includes a series of facilities hugging the Market Street corridor between 34th and 38th streets. Photo courtesy of the Science Center.

Europe’s largest organization for advancing chemical sciences has landed.

The Royal Society of Chemistry, which has a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, needed to set up an East Coast base to continue its expansion.

So, RSC and two other organizations, including a second foreign group making their first U.S. home in Philadelphia, have moved into the University City Science Center, the historic nonprofit� incubator and research park, according to a press release from the center [PDF].

With RSC, GADORE Center USA, an outpost of a German collaborative focused on renewable energy, is the newest participant in the center’s Global Soft landing program, which aims to help international companies develop a presence in the region’s life sciences and information technology markets. The program is housed at 3711 Market Street.

If the oldest and largest urban incubator and science park in the world wasn’t draw enough, Philadelphia’s growing reputation as a life sciences hub might help. And, yes, the companies also made mention that a big draw was Philly’s location between the American legislative capital and de facto financial home.

It doesn’t hurt that the center is zoned both as Keystone Opportunity and Innovation zones, which gives participating companies the opportunity for significant tax incentives. Resident companies employ some 7,500 people. See a list of those resident companies here.

The National Center for Patient Interactive Research, a newly established advocate for patient-generated data included in health information technology, also joined the center, opening operations at the center’s port business incubator, located at 3701 Market Street.

The center, which encompasses 15 buildings and 17 acres on the Avenue of Technology, boasts assisting the growth of more than 400 companies. The nonprofit is owned by 32 academic and media research institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple and Villanova universities. The center also has a campus in Newark, Del.