Philly Tech News VentureWatch 6/29/2012

Tom Paine

ISGN, the heavily funded and expanding mortgage technology company that had been based in Bensalem, apparently picked up and moved its headquarters early this year to Melbourne, Florida. I can find no trace of the company in Pennsylvania now (other than a location in Pittsburgh), and received no response to an email to the Florida headquarters. My guess is that the headcount in Bensalem wasn't that large, since many of its operations were acquired and located in various parts of the country, as well as in India. ISGN's most recent announced equity raise was a $30 million round announced last August. Another promising startup that departed the Philly scene (actually last year-I'm late in catching up on that one) is Venmo, the company that created the peer-to-peer mobile payments app of the same name that launched this Spring and is backed by Accel Ventures. Its headquarters is now in New York.

To replace these two on Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch" list, I've added two other promising companies: Unirisx, the Philadelphia-based SaaS property & casualty-oriented insurance platform headed by former Harleysville Group CIO Akhil Tripathi, and CloudMine, the Philly-based "backend as a service" provider for mobile and web apps, which though still early stage appears to have generated considerable traction.

A couple of items relating to Radnor-based NewSpring Capital: the Boston Business Journal reported earlier this month that Bedford, MA-based FirstBest Systems, in which NewSpring is an investor, is "well into the double digit millions" for revenue, according to its CEO, and looking toward an eventual public offering. It aims to serve as the "Bloomberg for insurance". Also, LLR Partners' recent investment in Columbia, MD-based Message Systems returned an unspecified amout of liquidity in a partial exit for NewSpring, which had invested in 2010. LLR paid double the price NewSpring paid in 2010 on a per-share basis, reported the Inquirer's Joe DiStefano, citing sources.

Princeton-based DoughMain, a startup that helps families and children learn how to better manage money, has received an investment of unspecified size from a private equity fund managed by former auto executive Lee Iacocca’s family. DoughMain recently acquired Allowance-Plus, a similar company founded by Iacocca son-in-law Ned Hentz, who will serve as Chief Creative Officer and have a board seat.



Philly-based Stream TV Networks, which has launched several devices such as an Android tablet and 3D TV (without glasses), has filed a Form D to raise up to $17 million, although it does not report any funds raised towards that goal yet.

DocVue Inc. of Newtown Square has reported raising $1,265,000, up from $890,000 reported late last year, and has raised its target to $2 million, according to its most recent SEC filing obtained through FormDs.com . DocVue's service is called konciergeMD, which aims to foster online collaboraton between patients and physicians. Its top execs have experience with companies such as SAP and QlikTech.

Another European software firm moves into town. Sweden-based Specops Software, which specializes in desktop and password management, opened a new office in Center City Philadelphia (it already has one in New Hampshire).



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