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.

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Sneak Peek: An early look at some new ventures popping up around Philly

Tom Paine

I had reported that Ecount (sold to Citi in 2007, now Citi Prepaid Services) co-founders Matt Gillin and Paul Raden have started Radnor-based Relay Network with backing from First Round Capital, ICG and NewSpring Capital. Now two other Ecount vets, Drew Kese and Kevin O'Nell, are getting back into the startup game with a venture called Orocast. Still very much in a stealth mode, Orocast won't say much about what its doing, though it did have a public coming out of sorts by cosponsoring Philly Scalathon in July. O'Nell said in a phone conversation to expect more news in the 4th quarter; just my guess that some clues about the venture's general direction might be found in its name and the founders' backgrounds.

Terry Williams' new venture, Cross X Platform, announced recently that it had launched and on Friday said that it had launched its website. Cross X (CXP) provides a shared platform of technology and support services for IT consulting and services firms. It may take equity stakes in some of these firms, and conversely the IT firms may participate in CXP's equity. CXP is located in Audubon. Terry founded and later sold the TWC Group, and is co-founder and managing partner of Next Stage Capital.

Zooyan is a Philly-based local shopping/deals site which annnounced its launch in March. Zooyan is operating in Philly only now, though it has plans to expand elsewhere. Its offers goods and services from local merchants broken down by neighborhood.

DoughMain (yes, thats its name) announced it has raised $5 million in Angel funding and launched its site August 1. The Princeton-based venture says that it will "offer a suite of features designed to help families coordinate their lives while empowering them to become better educated about money".

Phiiladelphia-based VITA Products has launched its new product, the VITAband, originally designed with runners in mind. It offers customers a small bracelet on which they can store personal health information, and it can also be used for contactless payment transactions.

CloudMine, a venture with local roots that provides tools for mobile app developers, was one of the first to be accepted into this year's Philly DreamIt Ventures class, according to Technically Philly.

MDconnectMe, a Philadelphia-based company, provides
a mobile app that connects patients with physicians and other healthcare providers in what it says is a HIPAA-compliant way. (The issue of direct electronics communications between physicians and patients has always been contentious.) It reported raising $50,000 in an SEC filing in May.



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