First Round Capital closes $135 million fund, Audience Partners and Agilence raise private equity rounds [VC Roundup]

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.

MUST READS

First Round Capital managing director Josh Kopelman officially announced that the firm closed on a new $135 million fund, First Round Capital IV. The fund is mostly the same as previous funds: the size, partners and strategy will stay consistent, building on previous rounds of success. The firm also announced that Kent Goldman and Phineas Barnes are new partners on the fund. TechCrunch notes the significance of the round in relation to early-stage investment. We first reported on the firm’s commitment to stay on target in February and on its SEC filings a month ago.

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VC Roundup: BFTP brags and Neat Co. raises cash

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

Just in case you had any doubt that Ben Franklin Technology Partners is one of the shinning stars in a city mostly devoid of pro-business entities, the state-funded organization went ahead and made a list of all the states that are trying to imitate BFTP. Ohio even went ahead and named its BFTP clone the “Thomas Edison” program.

Speaking of ol’ Tommy E, Edison Venture Fund and MentorTech Ventures have invested $2.75 million in the Neat Company, maker of Neat Receipts, a paperless receipt product. Though, if you read our startup roundup, you all ready knew that.

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VC Roundup: Genacast to invest in five startups this year, Lifeshield goes local

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

Yardley-based secutiry company Lifeshield has raised $11 million from a handful of local sources, including Novitas Capital, First Round Capital, NewSpring Ventures and Nutrisystem’s (based in Horsham) former CEO Michael Hagan. The funds will be used to relaunch the brand after it changed its name from InGrid Home Security.

Gil Beyda has a fantastic interview with adxchanger.com about the sale of Invite Media (our coverage here). Beyda’s company, Gencast Ventures, was one of Invite’s investors and the company’s sale to Google gave Gencast its first exit. Beyada also says that he is looking to invest in four to five new startups this year, so get that pitch ready.

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VC Roundup: BFTP and Fed start fund for green companies

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

The city is using stimulus money to create The Greenworks Pilot Energy Technology Program, a new accelerator fund designed to house green startups. The companies will be vetted by Ben Franklin Technology Partners and the grants will range from $50,000 to $150,000. The deadline to apply for the funds is July 31st.

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VC Roundup: PACT emerges from ETC and MAC, Outplay wins Baiada

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.

Update: corrected ETC’s name, corrected Precision item.

DEFINITE READS

Remember when Eastern Technology Council and Mid-Atlantic Capital fund merged? We’ll the new entity has finally decided on its new name and branding. Last Wednesday the new group announced at its awards dinner that it will be called PACT, short for Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies. Dean Miller of Novitas Capital will serve as the group’s CEO.

Outplay Technologies took first place at Drexel’s Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship Incubator Competition. According to the Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong, the company develops alternative video game controls  such as button-filled gloves. No comment, however, from the NES powerglove guy.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Radnor-based QR Pharma has raised $2.4 Million in seed money, including $500,000 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

NextStage Capital portfolio company Moda technolgies sold to Swiss-based Lonza Group for $10 Million according to our good friend Joe Destefano. The group planned a party at a local steakhouse to celebrate. For the record, fellas, Technically Philly is offended we weren’t invited. You should see Chris Wink sing karaoke.

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VC Roundup: VCs that can kill and the carried interest tax moves along

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.

MUST READS

As we wrote about this morning, our pals at Phillymag wrote a detailed expose on Mike Burns of Guggenheim Venture Partners. The story details the military-like workflow of the under-the-radar firm that focuses on buying distressed assets. We’d link to it, but as of Monday Night it appears the story hadn’t made it online yet. When its up be sure to give a read for an inside look into the only local investment firm that could also kick your ass. The story also had a sidebar of prominent local VC funds including First Round, Gencast and DreamIt.

The National Venture Capital Association continues its fight against a Senate Bill that it says would discourage investment activity. The bill, which would increase taxes on “carried interest” barely passed the passed the House and observers expect the Senate to make significant changes to the bill.

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VC Roundup: Safeguard is all over the place, NuPathe goes for an IPO

Edit: Removed old Safeguard news.

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.

MUST READS

MentorTech Ventures has led a $1.1 million Series A round for SeniorHomes.com, a site that helps people search for nursing homes and similar housing. MentorTech primarily invests in companies with founders and senior staff that have some connection to the University of Pennsylvania. CEO Chris Rodde went to Wharton and subsequently wrote a post on TechFlash about raising the cash.

NuPathe, the pharma company focusing primarily on drugs that are absorbed through the skin, continues its quest to take over the world by announcing an IPO. See our previous coverage here including an interview with CEO Jane Hollingsworth.

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VC Roundup: The bad government edition

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.

MUST READS

Peter Key writes about the pretty unanimous consensus that cuts to Ben Franklin Technology Partners are a bad thing. Each BFTP branch has seen its funding drop to $4 million, down from $6.9 million. BFTP estimates that it will give $1.7 less in funding in 2010 than last year.

Speaking of government screwing up the creation of new companies, the feds want to change the way carried interest is taxed. According to the Wall Street Journal, carried interest is typically 20 percent of the profits for VC firms, so the National Venture Capital Association ain’t happy. They’ve asked their members to sign a letter to congress.

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VC Roundup: DreamIt kicks off, BFTP gets busy

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

Technically Philly was able to stop in to see half of DreamIt Ventures‘ kick off weekend at the University City Science Center last Friday where local media, entrepreneurs and participating companies got a chance to network and prepare for the incubator’s third class. It was the first time that the participating companies were able to see the space and meet one another. New this year is Brooklyn-based edication investor Startl’s involvement. The group partnered with DreamIt to incubate five of Dreamit’s 15 participating companies.

In opening remarks, co-founder Mike Levinson said that DreamIt received over 350 applications and the tech world considers DreamIt as “one of the top three incubators in the country.”

Also new to this year’s class, Kerry Rupp will be replacing Steve Barsh, who is focusing on his new startup, Packlate.

The event was rounded out by Deputy Mayor of Economic Development Alan Greenberger bragging about Philly, Science Center CEO Steve Tang welcoming the businesses to the space and Click Equations CEO Lucinda Holt discussing the difference between CEOs and Founders.

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners has been busy in recent weeks. The southeast group invested $800,000 in five (mostly pharma) companies last month, but then shelled out $2 million for eight more recently. The group also released its annual report and the finalists for the New Energy Idea Contest and plans to announce a winner June 17th.

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