Entrepreneurship : In The News

Center City startup Connectify takes to Kickstarter for multiple broadcband software

GigaOm Friday, August 10, 2012

GigaOm reports on Philadelphia's Connectify, which created a Kickstarter campaign to fund its project that would combnie Wi-Fi and 4G into a single, fat wireless pipe.

Why would you want to combine multiple broadband connections? Well, if you eat up gobs of bandwidth through file sharing, the aggregated connections would come in handy, but a more typical example revolves around connection management. Connectify’s software allows you to prioritize different links. If you were at an airport or coffee shop with spotty Wi-Fi but didn’t want to max out your 4G hotspot’s monthly data allotment, you could configure Dispatch to tap a free Wi-Fi network’s cheap bandwidth first and only resort to the 4G hotspot when Wi-Fi falters.

Original source: GigaOm

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Philadelphia leaders take to Toronto to share and 'steal'

Yonge Street Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Greater Philadelphia Economy League Executive Director Steve Wray talkes to Flying Kite sister publication Yonge Street about his organization's Greater Philadelphia Leadership Exchange, which visits Toronto this week.

One the focuses of the Economy League is what it means to be a world-class region and what it would take for Greater Philadelphia to attain status as a world-class region. As we select places to go, we look for regions that are world class or striving to be world class. Clearly Toronto has attained the status in the global community as a city and region on the rise, as a global financial capital and as an international city. We thought there were a lot of lessons we could bring back to Philadelphia from Toronto that would serve us well.

Original source: Yonge Street

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Philly Startup Weekend winner SeedInvest seeking funding

Triple Pundit Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Recent Philly Startup Weekend winner SeedInvest is included in Triple Pundit's roundup of next-generation crowdfunding platforms.

Founder Ryan Feit said that following their win, he’s had a lot of people from the Philadelphia community reach out to him about investing and is in the process of seeking a round of funding. The site is still in the pre-launch phase but entrepreneurs and business owners can apply for early access.

Original source: Triple Pundit

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TechGirlz, StartUp Corps offering entrepreneurship, technology mentorship for youth

Inc. magazine Monday, July 09, 2012

Inc. magazine touches on Philadelphia's TechGirlz and StartUp Corps, both of which are offering summer programs for young people interested in technology and entrepreneurship.

One such camp, TechGirlz, begins Monday in Philadelphia. The camp, which is a collaboration with DreamIt Ventures and StartUp Corps, will give girls in 6th-8th grades a week of hands-on technology experience as well as a chance to develop business ideas under the mentorship of local entrepreneurs and developers. The goal is to get girls more interested in technology and start-ups early on to change the gender statistics in the IT industry.

Original source: Inc.

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Wharton's admissions director: Our alumni are as engaged as ever

Papalguy Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Despite removing alumni from the MBA interview process, Wharton's admissions director Ankur Kumar says alumni are as critical to the marketing effort as ever and also addresses other important changes in an interview with MBA site Papalguy.

The new curriculum change is going to increase that flexibility in three specific ways. Firstly, it’s going to increase flexibility in terms of timing in when students can start their electives. Historically, students have spent their entire first year taking their core curriculum and they start taking electives in the second year. Now, due to a reduced or pared down core curriculum, students can actually start to take electives in their first year and start on their pursuits around different academic subjects and interests.

Original source: Papalguy

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Local duo finds popularity of patents steadily declining among startups

TechCrunch Friday, June 22, 2012

RJ Metrics founder Robert J. Moore and local patent lawyer Leonid Kravets found that only one-third of a sample of 12,404 funded technology companies have applied for patents, a signal that startups are paying less attention to patents, reports TechCrunch.

Arguments about the value of patents have heated up over the past few years. Software patents in particular have come under increasing scrutiny from thought leaders in the start-up ecosystem, yet later-stage companies like Facebook continue to pay huge sums to acquire patent portfolios.

Original source: Tech Crunch

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Behind the B Corp 'badge of honor' with Mugshots, Workplace Dynamics

Entrepreneur Friday, June 22, 2012

Mugshots CoffeeHouse & Cafe and Workplace Dynamics in Exton are profiled as proud, eco-conscious members of the B Corp movement, reports Entrepreneur.

Mugshots owner Angela Vendetti says just making it through the extensive certification process is something to be proud of as an entrepreneur. "There are all kinds of questions about your waste policy and what you do for the environment," Vendetti says. "They ask about cleaning products and energy, everything from what you offer your employees to how you consider your neighbors in the decisions you make."

Original source: Entrepreneur

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Comcast renews investment in DreamIt Ventures minority-focused entrepreneur program

TechCrunch Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Comcast Ventures renewed its investment in startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures' minority-focused entrepreneur program in Philadelphia and New York, DreamIt Access, reports TechCrunch.

DreamIt and Comcast Ventures, the venture capital arm of Comcast Corporation, first partnered on DreamIt Access in May 2011, announcing at the time a $350,000 fund to give five startups in the Philly 2011 program an extra infusion of capital (These included ElectNext, Kwelia, MetaLayer, ThaTrunk and Qwite, whose founders are African-American, Asian, Hispanic and Indian.) Later, the investment was formalized into a year-long minority accelerator program called DreamIt Access.

Original source: Tech Crunch

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After Philly launch, on-demand car service Uber eyes San Diego

TechCrunch Monday, June 11, 2012

After launching its on-demand car service in Philadelphia last month, Uber continues its expansion spree by launching in San Diego on Friday, reports TechCrunch.

With 1.3 million people in the city and 3.1 million in San Diego County, there’s a pretty big population for Uber to go after. And the population there is pretty well off, with about 30 percent of households having an annual income of $30,000 or more. That means plenty of potential riders with cash to spend on a premium car service.

Original source: TechCrunch

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SnipSnap clipping away: 123,000 downloads and $555,000 seed round

Friday, May 25, 2012

Gigaom reports on Philadelphia-based Snip-Snap's continued rise, including a recent seed round of $550,000.

The app, which launched last month, allows people to scan coupons they find in a mailer or newspaper. It reformats the information in the app and makes it easy for people to present the barcode at the point of sale for redemption. Users can get set alerts to warn them before a coupon is about to expire or remind them when they enter a store where they’ve saved a coupon. The app also offers the ability to share coupons online through Facebook, Twitter and email.

Original source: Gigaom

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NYT likes how Philly food trucks roll

The New York Times Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The New York Times dives into Philadelphia's rapidly growing food truck culture, which still has plenty of room for growth.

In fact, the indie food-truck operators who tweet their location of the day to those in the know in Philadelphia have been retweeted by the likes of Le Meridien, a luxury hotel in Center City across from a plaza where many trucks set up.

That a hotel would promote trucks across the street in addition to its own upscale brasserie is an indication that food trucks, as overexposed as they seem, have their merits: they churn out reliably good, affordable food that you wouldn’t find on an average menu. And in Philadelphia, the scene is far from reaching its saturation point.

Original source: The New York Times

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Main Line-based Cleaversoft's PuppyWars draws 8,000 iOS users

International Business Times Tuesday, May 15, 2012

It was only last month when we followed up on Rich Siegel of Main Line Delivery and his latest app venture, Cleaversoft, and now International Business Times checks in on how they're "raising the bar on cuteness."

Siegel said he was partially inspired by the addictive gameplay of his first game "BeardWars," but he also noticed that there was no "great" app centered around man's best friend.

"We saw other dog apps out there and wanted to blow them out of the water," Siegel said. "I think we have the best app for dog lovers on the App Store now."

Original source: International Business Times

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Philly based Curalate launches in a big way, caters to brands who want image analytics

TechCrunch Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Philadelphia-based Curalate, a service for brands to search and track images across social networks, officially launched today with $750,000 in seed funding from NEA, First Round Capital and University of Pennsylvania-focused MentorTech, reports TechCrunch.

Although the site is only officially launching today, in its beta format it has already managed to pick up more than 150 brands as customers, its co-founder and CEO, Apu Gupta, tells me. That speaks to how, up to now, there hasn’t been an analytics service available quite like the one that Curalate is offering.

Gupta notes that while there have been a number of companies that have jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon and started to offer analytics to measure how brands are resonating on the social network, Curalate is the first to look not just at what a brand is posting on the site, but it can also track what regular people are posting. In other words, not just the sweater as J.Crew pins it, but as you or I might pin it, too.

Original source: TechCrunch

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NYT likes how Philly food trucks roll

The New York Times Friday, May 11, 2012

The New York Times dives into Philadelphia's rapidly growing food truck culture, which still has plenty of room for growth.

Original source: The New York Times

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DailyWorth founder and CEO raised millions

Forbes Thursday, May 03, 2012

Philadelphia's Amanda Steinberg is profiled by Forbes as she shares five lessons from an unconventional entrepreneur.

Launched in January 2009, the 14-employee site–which sends out free emails on finance in a model similar to DailyCandy’s–has raised $3 million in equity capital from investors such as Dave McClure‘s 500 Startups and Google executive chair Eric Schmidt‘s Tomorrow Ventures. While $3 million is not a record-breaking figure, plenty of entrepreneurs would be happy with that amount of cash to grow their business.

Original source: Forbes

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