BFTP invests $1.8 million in nine companies

Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the state-funded early stage and angel investment organization based in the Navy Yard, has announced nine new investments in local companies. Here they are below, separated into industry for your reading convenience:

TECH:

• Snipi – $150,000. Snipi is an Evernote-like repository for links and other content to be shared over social media. As told to Technically Philly in a Q&A last May, the company is focusing on e-commerce shoppers.
• First Flavor – $100,000. The “taste marketing” company makes edible stripes to be included in magazine advertisements and other formats.
• Document Depository Corporation – $100,000. Document Depository Corporation is an online document viewer with an emphasis on security for legal and financial materials. In the past, BFTP has funded Vuzit, another online document viewer.
• Click Equations – $50,000. Hemled by Turntide vet Lucinda Holt, Click Equations creates tools that manage paid search campaigns. Read our September 2009 feature on the company for more.
• Advanced Mobile Solutions – $125,000. AMS is a mobile marketing developer. According to a press release, the company’s most popular application is Cars2Go, an app that helps connect dealers with customers. The app allows users to browse inventory and also provides each dealership with the ability to receive text message coupons. AMS also makes similar applications for the real estate industry.

PHARMA/GREEN:

• Topaz Pharmaceuticals - $500,000. Topaz is focused on making new treatments for headlice, including a new cream. The company is currently seeking FDA approval.
• SRS Energy - $250,000. SRS develops solar panels to double as roof tiles.
• Real Time Tomography – $275,000. The medical imaging company develops 2D and 3D imaging systems to help improve the accuracy of diagnosis. We’d be lying if we said we knew exactly what that means.
• Molecular Detection - $250,000. Fresh off of raising $1.4 million from Robin Hood Ventures and Mid-Atlantic Angel Group, the disease detection company can now add BFTP to its impressive list of investors.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners: Budget cuts would “unravel” local startup support

Ben Franklin Technology Partners is keeping a close eye on the state budget.

For the past five weeks, Pennsylvania has been operating without a budget as state legislators wrestle between a 16 percent income tax increase and cuts in state spending, among other points of contention between the Democratically-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate.

As a result, state employees are no longer being paid, and expired unemployment benefits are not receiving an extension (though a tiny no-frills emergency budget may pass soon).

Caught up in the hurricane of the state budget debate is BFTP, a state-funded early stage investment group that could see its budget slashed by up to 60 percent. The organization is now asking its constituents to help push their state legislator to keep the group’s funding levels intact.

Otherwise, a cut to the funding to BFTP could have a dramatic impact on the city and the region.

And if you’re a reader of Technically Philly, that probably means you.

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Friday Q&A: Steve Welch, candidate for Congress

Steve Welch’s business card could be three times the size of a normal person’s.

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.

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