Daily Links 2/25/2013: Christie expected to sign Internet gambling bill tomorrow; Warby Parker raises $41.5 mm

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$30 million Bethlehem project targets tech companies (Lehigh Valley Business)

First Round Capital Funds Another $500K Student-Run Venture Fund in New York (All Things D)

Warby Parker Grabs New Investment From American Express & J. Crew CEO, Closing $41.5M Round (TechCrunch)
Founded at Wharton; First Round Capital was an early investor.

Workday competitor SilkRoad selects banks for IPO -sources (Reuters)

FCC Roughed Up in D.C. Circuit
Judges have lots of issues with statute of limitations on carriage complaint and First Amendment implications of remedy (Broadcasting & Cable)
On Comcast/Tennis Channel dispute.

Awaiting the Dimming of G.E. at 30 Rock (New York Times: City Room)

Motorola Brings ITV to Older Set-Tops With ActiveVideo Software (Multichannel News)

Gov. Chris Christie expected to sign bill allowing Internet gambling on Tuesday (Press of Atlantic City)

Wharton and Cisco Show Off the Telepresence Classroom of Tomorrow (Time Tech)


SideCar Says Three Philadelphia Drivers Caught In ‘Sting’, But It Plans to Continue Operations (TechCrunch)

Xtium Expands Partnership with YASH Technologies
Partnership brings increased deployment velocity, economic benefit to managed cloud hosting market (PR Web)

MeetMe® Launches in Chinese, Russian and Japanese
(Marketwire)




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Artisan (formerly appRenaissance) launches mobile development platform, Artisan Optimize

Tom Paine

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Artisan, The Old City Philadelphia mobile platform developer formerly known as appRenaissance, today announced from eTail West the general availability of its first off-the-shelf product, Artisan Optimize, which it calls the industry's first Mobile Experience Management (MEM) platform. Artisan Optimize is designed to put the ability to design, test and modify mobile apps directly in the hands of end users, rather than relying on developers, and greatly speed the app development process.

Artisan Optimize is the end result of a private beta process that began in September and public beta started in December. Beta testers included more than 100 customers, of which more than 12 were Fortune 500 members. This release targets iPads and iPhones up to iOS 6; Android support is forthcoming, Artisan says. Also, the Artisan app is now available in the iPhone app store. Artisan Optimize is the first of a series of products on the Artisan MEM platform; others are scheduled for release this year.

A key design element to Artisan's approach is its patent-pending technology which renders the user interface of a native mobile application dynamically from the cloud. The Cloud-based user interface approach grew in part out of Artisan's acquisition of UXFlip last year and bringing its founder Michael Raber on board, Artisan CEO Bob Moul told me in a phone interview.




At least on the surface, there are some similarities to Conshohocken-based Monetate in Artisan's positioning. Marketers and retailers are high on Artisan's list of target markets, and there is an emphasis on giving end-users the ability to rapidly design and modify A/B tests on the fly without programmer involvement.

Artisan has raised $3 million so far led by FirstMark Capital, a New York-based VC firm that knows Moul well since it also backed Boomi, which Moul guided to its successful exit to Dell; Moul and other local private investors have also participated. They've been ramping up; Moul tells me headcount is around 20 and there are nine openings currently listed on Artisan's website, all based in Philadelphia. Artisan's go to market approach will include both outside and inside sales (VP, Sales is among the open positions) and the channel. Price points are $1,000, $4,000 and $10,000 per month. Moul says a Series A round may happen down the road.




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