espite being coastally challenged (currently living in Philadelphia), Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – an Internet information company. In 1996, Infonautics went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Six months in Philly
It’s been a little over six months since we moved our headquarters into the city of Philadelphia.
And boy has a lot happened since then:
- We announced the Dorm Room Fund here in Philadelphia. We received interest from over 700 students to serve on the investment committee. We selected 11 students. And they have already begun to make investments at a rapid pace! So far they’ve committed over $150K for investment into 8 companies founded by Philadelphia-area students. We’re so happy with the traction that we’re seeing here in Philadelphia, that we’re even expanding the Dorm Room Fund to other cities.
- We’ve hired over a dozen interns from Penn and Drexel, including six Portfolio Consultants – who have completed over 30 consulting engagements for our portfolio in the last month!
- We’ve hosted thousands of people at dozens of events in our new space. These events help bring us closer to the Philadelphia tech ecosystem. From meetings to help plan Philly Tech Week, to Open Angel Forum meetings, to Startup Corps weekly mentorship meetings, to Girl Develop It Philadelphia meetings, to Good Company Ventures Investor Day -- we’ve met some really incredible people.
- And in the last six months we’ve been thrilled to see other investors step up to support Philadelphia entrepreneurs. Goldman Sachs committed $10 million in loans to Philadelphia startups. Blackstone (in partnership with Temple University, Philadelphia University, and the University City Science Center) announced a $3M LaunchPad program to provide mentorship and venture consultation to entrepreneurs, Drexel University unveiled plans for a new fund -- Drexel Ventures -- which will provide seed funding for technology startups. The University of Pennsylvania Healthcare System, Blue Cross and DreamIt Ventures teamed up to launch DreamIt Health – an accelerator that provides investment, mentoring, and customer-access to healthcare entrepreneurs. And we’ve been approached by several suburban venture firms who are contemplating moving to the city!
Finally, today we are excited to announce that First Round Capital has been selected by the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to manage the Startup PHL Seed Fund, a new fund announced by Mayor Michael Nutter to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups. This fund will be a co-investment fund – where the PIDC has allocated $3 million to be invested alongside $3 million from First Round Capital in qualified, Philadelphia-based startups. We’re hoping that this fund will result in more companies starting – and staying – in Philadelphia.
It’s been a busy six months – and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next six!
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