Entrepreneurship : In The News

Malvern-based Momentum Dynamics has developed a wireless charging pad for the Chevy Volt. The 10-person startup is helping revolutionize charging technology for electric vehicles. The Daily News chatted with the company's founder.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for wireless charging?
A: I was working on a project to deliver solar power to troops during the Iraq war, which led me to a safe, short-distance method of transmitting power wirelessly. The clear application was electric vehicles. The challenge was not the vehicle or battery but the charging connection to the grid.

Original source: The Daily News
Read the full story here.

The Wall Street Journal notes Toll Brothers' increasing stake in the national condo market. The Horsham-based company, known locally for its suburban developments before forays into Naval Square and the Loft District, already has ten condo projects under way in New York City. They are scheduled to announce their first project in the Washington, D.C. area.

"Baby boomers are downsizing and getting tired of mowing the lawn, and many are looking for a place where they don't have to drive for everything," said Christopher Leinberger, a Washington urban land-use strategist and partner in developer Arcadia Land Co. "The home builders in this country have been slow in getting into this market, but once they do, they find that it is a large market with pent-up demand."

Original source: The Wall Street Journal
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Teva, the Israeli pharmaceutical company, is nixing plans to build a proposed $300 million distribution center in Northeast Philadelphia. The company was to set to receive $4.7 million in grants and tax credits to aid construction.

Earlier this month, Teva, which is based in Israel and has its North American headquarters in North Wales, Pa., said it is reassessing its global network footprint as part of a plan to reduce costs by $1.5 billion to $2 billion over the next three-to-five years.Teva broke ground on the distribution project, which called for the construction of three buildings that would have employed more than 200 workers, in September 2011.

Original source: Philadelphia Business Journal
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Philadelphia-based startup SnipSnap's new features get some holiday-time props from megablog TechCrunch. Their eponymous coupon clipping mobile app has gotten significantly better.

But first, the biggest change. SnipSnap 2.0 takes what social elements were present in the original and expands on them greatly — unlike before, new users are asked to create accounts and can link them with Facebook or Twitter to connect with other coupon-conscious friends. From there, those users can also select their interests from a list so SnipSnap can provide them with some starter coupons — apparently, new users of SnipSnap wouldn’t know what do once they installed the app, and the starter coupons were intended to help them a get a feel for using it. Smart.

Original source: TechCrunch
Read the full story here.

The Philadelphia Business Journal releases their list of the region's fastest growing private companies. The list includes 50 first-time companies.

M. Therese Flaherty, director of the Wharton Small Business Development Center, said that after years of recession pressure on company growth rates, local entrepreneurs are finally seeing things return to normal. During the recession, growth rates at the bottom of the 100 were close to zero. This year, the No. 100 company achieved 56 percent growth, near the historic norm.

Original source: Philadelphia Business Journal
For the full story click here.

Philadelphia is among the 20 cities from across the country to be named a finalist in the Mayors Challenge. In Spring, Bloomberg Philanthropies will announce the winning team, which will receive $5 million to jumpstart its idea; four other teams will each receive $1 million.

In Houston, the Challenge has brought to the fore a plan to streamline waste diversion by developing the first total material resource recovery facility in the nation. San Francisco’s project seeks to link unemployed individuals with city government projects that lack personnel to close the employment gap throughout the city. Chicago’s plan calls for the deployment of an open-source analytics platform that will help streamline decision-making processes in city services, while Philadelphia focuses on developing public-private partnerships to tackle urban issues.

Original source: National Geographic's City Solutions blog
Read the full story here. For more on the Mayors Challenge click here.

Mashable looks at how some of the biggest names in tech make money, including Philadelphia search challenger DuckDuckGo (which still isn't profitable).

As one might expect, advertising and paid subscriptions are two major sources of revenue for these companies. The Internet has also given rise to a phenomenon known as “freemium,” when a company provides a base service for free but charges fees for certain premium features. For instance, Dropbox offers 2GB of free cloud data storage. If a user wants more space, however, he or she will have to pay up.

Original source: Mashable
Read the full story here.

Barron's writes about Berwyn-based B-Lab's impact on investing.

The process has cred. Yale School of Management now forgives student loans of M.B.A.s who work for a B Corp after graduation. Working with corporate-law firms, B Lab has also drafted legislation that would establish a "Benefit Corporation," a legal entity in which directors are held accountable for their treatment of people and the planet alongside their responsibilities to maximize shareholder profits.

Source: Barron's
Read the full story here.