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.
Philadelphia - City of Angels
Early last year, First Round was honored to be selected by the City of Philadelphia and PIDC to manage the Startup PHL Seed Fund – a $6M fund designed to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups. And to date, we have funded three Philly-based companies through that fund (Real Foods Works, Velano Vascular, and a third startup that has not yet announced their funding yet).
Today, I am excited to announce that Startup PHL has expanded its mandate to allow funding of some of Philadelphia’s earliest-stage startups with the Startup PHL Angel Fund. Making investments from $25,000 to $100,000, the Angel Fund will invest at earlier stages than the Seed Fund – co-investing alongside angel investors (rather than First Round Capital) to help very early-stage companies build a minimum viable product or validate key assumptions.
Today we will be announcing the first three Startup PHL Angel Fund investments at an event this evening organized by Philly Startup Leaders, Technically Philly and Startup PHL. The three companies include:
Squareknot is a way for people to create beautiful step-by-step guides. Users can collaborate on guides by branching off in separate directions to demonstrate their unique way of doing the same thing.
Tesorio enables companies to self-finance their daily operations, streamlining early payments on invoices so suppliers get paid early and buyers optimize returns on cash.
VeryApt combines user reviews with big data analytics to deliver intelligent, personalized apartment recommendations.
If your company is based in Philly or you are planning to move here, we would love for you to introduce yourself to Startup PHL here.
Philadelphia is becoming one of the most exciting, dynamic startup cities in the country, and First Round is proud to be a part of the city's growing community of entrepreneurs. We look forward to supporting more great founders as they build innovative companies in America's founding city.
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