entrepreneurship : In The News

The Bowery Presents rock club group will open Union Transfer in Philadelphia in the former Spaghetti Warehouse building on Spring Garden Street, with help from local impresarios Sean Agnew and Avram Hornik, according to The New York Times.

The Bowery Presents empire of rock clubs and theaters has already expanded from the Lower East Side to New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine, and now it is spreading to Pennsylvania.

Working with two local partners, the company is opening Union Transfer, a new performance space near Center City in Philadelphia with room for 600 people. The first show will be Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on Sept. 21, and other coming shows include Shellac on Sept. 29, Wild Flag on Oct. 19 and Boris on Oct. 28, according to an announcement on Tuesday by Bowery Presents. About 200 shows a year are planned for the space, which was once a train depot and more recently a Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant.

Source: The New York Times

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More than 500 people came to the Piazza at Schmidts in Northern Liberties for Saturday's Vendy Awards, reports the Associated Press.

Eight of the city's most popular food carts and trucks competed Saturday at the Vendy Awards, an offshoot of the popular New York City cook-off that started in 2005. Online voters chose the eight finalists and a panel of chefs and foodies at Saturday's sold-out and sweltering event chose the Caribbean and American soul food of Gigi and Big R's as the winner.

The 10-year-old curbside culinary business is operated by Elukene Rene ("Big R"), originally from Haiti, and Thomas Bacon ("Gigi"), from Philadelphia, and operates on the Drexel University campus.

Original source: Associated Press
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AOL's travel blog Gadling makes a stop in Philly and is instantly enamored with Old City co-working space Independents Hall.

Sitting in a kitchen in a loft on Third Street in Old City, talking to one of the most enthusiastic and driven people I've met in years, I began to wonder what would happen if I quit my job, moved to Philadelphia and started my own business. Alex Hillman, wearing a t-shirt that read "I <3 my internet friends," was selling me on the cheekily named co-working space Independents Hall, of which he's a co-founder. His friend Parker Whitney was helping, telling me the story of his two years in Philadelphia.

The IndyHall guys certainly have the attention of the city, or at least some of its politicians. City councilman Bill Green is a big supporter, and government staffers are taking notice of the way things get done when fueled by passionate people-and Victory beer happy hours.

Original source: Gadling
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Berwyn-based nonprofit B Lab is growing social entrepreneurship nationally, reports Inc.

The B Corp movement was founded in 2007 by 81 companies seeking an alternative to the for-profit way of doing business. According to B Lab, the B community today comprises 422 certified companies throughout 54 industries including business services firms, telecoms, banks, venture capitalists, tech firms, apparel, and consumer goods manufactures. These certified B Corps have a combined total of $1.94 billion in revenues.

There are tons of certified B Corps that are profitable businesses, says Jay Coen Gilbert, a B Lab cofounder. "Some have been getting great valuations and attracting outside capital. And some have sold their businesses for a profit."

Original source: Inc.
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Chef Michael Solomonov of Zahav Restaurant in Society Hill says his grandmother's cooking inspires him, according to ABC's Nightline.

Michael Solomonov admits that as a kid he was "a terrible eater. I was like, 'I don't like tomatoes.'� I would eat � toast with sugar on it [all the time]."

The one thing he would never turn down were his grandmother's bourekas, savory puff pastries usually filled with cheese and olives. "She was Bulgarian, and they moved to Israel in '48, right after the War of Independence. She cooked these Balkan things that were foreign to everyone here in the United States, even Jews," he said.

Whenever she made a batch, Solomonov, his father and his brother "would eat bourekas and fall asleep -- kind of like face down on the plate."

Source: Nightline, ABC News

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Viridity Energy partners with Saft and Envitech on the first trackside energy storage system in North America, recycling energy from braking SEPTA trains and trolleys, according to the New York Times.

Subway trains need a lot of electricity to get going, turning electricity into kinetic energy, the energy of movement. When they pull into a station, many of them can do the opposite: generate electricity from their momentum. They turn their motors into generators to slow the train, producing current.

But in many systems, some of that energy goes to waste because of a bottleneck: the third rail, which carries current to the train, cannot handle as much energy as the train is generating during deceleration. Too much current pushes up the voltage, and when the voltage gets too high, the electricity is dissipated by running it through a piece of metal that converts it into heat.

But in Philadelphia, on the Market-Frankford line of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority, a new company called Viridity Energy will install batteries to capture a lot of that electricity and hold it while the train is in the station. Then it can deliver the power when the train starts up again or store it for a time of day when it is needed more.

Source: The New York Times
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Philly Beer Week is viewed through the lens of Philadelphia's long, rich and tasty brewing history in this Washington Times report.

Philadelphia's role in worldly beer, though, is not limited to just German-style beer. Local publican Tom Peters, of the famed Monk's Cafe, is credited with bringing the first kegged Belgian beer to the States to be served on draft. With Philadelphia's well-known affinity for great beer, many of this country's and Belgium's beers make their way in to the Philadelphia beer market.

Therefore, local brewers, importers, and distributors have created more educated consumers who have demanded more experimentation and innovation. The circle of supply and demand remains unbroken in Philadelphia.

Original source: Washington Times
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Comcast Interactive Capital and DreamIt Ventures partner to provide business development to minority owned initiatives, according to TechCrunch.

Comcast Interactive Capital, the venture capital arm of the media giant, has partnered with Philadelphia based venture fund and startup accelerator Dreamit Ventures to provide seed funding, training, mentoring and other benefits to minority-led startups through DreamIt's accelerator program.

The new $350,000 fund will give five minority-led startups for its Fall Philadelphia 2011 program a extra infusion of capital on top of the funding DreamIt provides for its class of startups. For Comcast Interactive Capital, this is the first investment initiative from the $20 million fund that was created as part of the acquisition of NBC Universal. The $20 million fund will be used to invest in other minority led startups and initiatives (outside of DreamIt), mainly in the technology sector.

Source: TechCrunch
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Oliver Strand names six Philly coffee spots he loves as much as our sports, art and culture, according to the New York Times.

Philadelphia has plenty going for it: the best four-man rotation in baseball, art worth fighting over, a ruin so elegant and haunting it feels like Berlin. It also has superb coffee. Recently, I went on a coffee crawl that took me to a handful of shops where the baristas aren't just tremendously skilled, they're disarmingly sweet-natured. I found an energetic scene thriving outside the gravitational pull of the hometown giant La Colombe Torrefaction.

I was in Philadelphia to check out the local Thursday Night Throwdown --TNT to insiders -- a monthly cappuccino-off where 32 baristas compete for glory (the winner gets his or her initials embroidered on a strip of denim) and a decent-sized kitty (from the entrance fees). The evening was three hours of steaming milk in front of a crowd plied with pizza and beer. A news crew taped the throw-down, maybe because one of the judges was Winston Justice, offensive tackle for the Eagles and co-owner of Elixr Coffee, the host of the contest. Later, a good number of the competitors and spectators adjourned to a dive bar with a drag show -- the $7 cover included a can of beer and a shot of Jim Beam. Fun town.

Source: The New York Times
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When Center City's Beaux Arts Video closes its doors for good, a former customer says a long goodbye, according to The Millions.

At first glance, Beaux Arts Video didn't look like much. A cramped storefront on Tenth and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia, it was a few hundred square feet of worn carpet, handmade shelves, and ceilings that dripped when it rained. The front of the shop, bright and neatly kept, was devoted to new releases; a larger, scruffier section, down a short flight of steps, held the rest of its aging stock, VHS to DVD, classics to pure dreck.

Despite its shortcomings, Beaux Arts managed a modest greatness. Its overstuffed racks spoke like an ardent fan who loved Tootsie, Marty, and Zardoz pretty much equally. When my wife and I moved to Philadelphia in the summer of 2001, we found ourselves there most nights, our eyes aglaze with choice. Kirsten browsed upstairs, moving slowly from row to row; I poked around downstairs, searching for something weird: Delicatessen, Logan's Run, maybe A Boy and His Dog.

Source: The Millions
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Philadelphia based insurance giant Cigna Corp. exceeded first-quarter expectations due to lowered medical claims and increased international business, according to The Associated Press.

Cigna Corp.'s first-quarter net income jumped 52 percent as medical claims fell, the international business grew again, and it raised its 2011 profit forecast like other big health insurers that also beat expectations for the quarter.

The Philadelphia company said Thursday earnings in health care, its largest segment, climbed 47 percent, and premiums and fees from its international business rose 32 percent, fueled in part by the purchase of the Belgian company Vanbreda International last year.

Source: The Associated Press
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Fast Company writes about how First Round Capital has changed the way VC firms are run.

One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. I'm a huge fan of this innovation.

What people don't know is how First Round got started and often people know less about the amazing background of one of its co-founders, Howard Morgan (everyone tends to know Josh Kopelman as one of the highest profile players in our industry overall).

Source: Fast Company
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A corporate career cut short leads one former Exton executive to franchise ownership, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Many would argue that fried chicken has nothing to do with healthcare. Reynolds Corea would beg to differ.

He's a former outsourcing expert who was making "easily" six figures, Corea said, when Accenture Ltd. cut him loose in January 2009 after nearly 20 years.

A layoff that has led Corea where so many corporate refugees have opted to go for a second career act: operating a franchise business.

The franchise market is growing at an annual rate of 2%, said John A. Pearce II, endowed chairman of strategic management and entrepreneurship at Villanova's School of Business.

Source: The Los Angeles Times
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Comcast-Spectacor Chairman Ed Snider discusses secrets of his success at the 2011 Entrepreneurship Invitational with The Washington Post.

On April 1, a crowd of nearly 600 at the University of Maryland heard some of the secrets of success from three entrepreneurs who have lived it at the 2011 Entrepreneurship Invitational: Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, investor, philanthropist and chairman of the Obama administration's entrepreneurship initiative, the Startup America Partnership; Kevin Plank, founder and chief executive of the sports apparel firm Under Armour; and Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, the Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment firm that owns hockey's Philadelphia Flyers and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, as well as the two franchises' downtown arena, the Wells Fargo Center.

Source: The Washington Post
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Johnson & Johnson plans to buy West Chester-based Synthes, and the deal may usher in future medtech investment, according to Reuters.

Johnson & Johnson's plan to buy Synthes for some $20 billion may mean more deals in the sector as rival medical technology firms try to bulk up in tough times, though antitrust issues are a hurdle.

A weak economy and high unemployment have hit sales of medical devices hard, since patients have to take time off and, in the United States, dig deep into their own pockets to help pay for procedures such as knee replacements.

As a result, more and more companies are looking at acquisitions as a way to add new avenues of growth.

Source: Reuters
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