Edison Partners returns fire at out-of-town critics at IMPACT '14, but tends to find most of its own deals elsewhere

Tom Paine

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In a blog post entitled "Where's the Love for the City of Brotherly Love?", Edison Partners (Lawrenceville, NJ) General Partner Michael Kopelman wrote about how a panel of out-of-town VCs at 2014 IMPACT Capital Conference in Philadelphia late last month "dissed"(my words) the Philadelphia startup scene, paraphrasing their comments as saying "the Philadelphia region doesn’t have enough great companies, nor great entrepreneurs, to justify their 70-minute train ride or flight down from NYC or Boston."

The purpose of having an out-of-town panel(none of whom have closed a deal here) was to give Philly attendees an idea of how outside investors view the startup community here.

Kopelman then recites all the great companies Edison has helped build in Philadelphia over 30 years (true) that have been acquired, including Fiberlink (acquired by IBM), Verilogue (Publicis), Cadient (Cognizant), VirtualEdge (ADP), and Octagon (Accenture).

But Edison has not invested in a Philly metro-based company in quite some time. In fact, going through Edison's own funding announcements and CrunchBase I didn't find a single one going back to 2010, when there were follow-on rounds in some existing portfolio companies (including Health Market Science, which coincidentally announced today it was being acquired. Please let me know if I missed any.) There aren't too many Philly firms remaining in Edison's portfolio other than Neat Company, which I recently profiled. Also, there's Hamilton, NJ-based Billtrust, which took on Bain Capital Ventures as its lead investor two years ago, and Miria Systems of Media, PA. There were a couple of other small investments in central New Jersey.

When Edison raised its $249 million seventh fund in 2012, there were expectations it would deploy some of that capital in Philadelphia-area ventures. I'm not knocking Edison, which has an excellent track record (not believing in an overly provincial approach to VC investing), and I'm sure its people cover the region closely, but in fact most of Edison's recent investments have taken place in New York, Northern NJ, DC, with a few scattered in the midwest and south.

Bill McDermott, Digital Health highlight IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference

Tom Paine

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Philadelphia PACT's annual IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference begins Tuesday, October 28 and runs through Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia. I had an opportunity to talk with Michael Purcell, Partner of Deloitte (lead sponsor this year) and Chairman of IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference, and Dean Miller, President and CEO of PACT to review the program.

It will have two key highlights in my view: Bill McDermott as a keynote speaker, and an emphasis on the deep, expanding digital health community in the Philly area.

Bill McDermott /PACT

McDermott, the dynamic executive who earlier this year became the sole CEO of enterprise software giant SAP (he had been co-CEO), is the first American CEO of the Germany-based company. His home base is SAP's North American headquarters in Newtown Square, although with his expanded role he's spending more time in Germany, and has purchased a home there. McDermott, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for high public office (though I don't know the origin of the rumor that he might have interest), has also penned a recent book, Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office, partly autobiographical and partly a story of others' triumphs over challenges.

He may discuss the book among other things in the keynote, which actually will in the form of a Q&A conducted with Technical.ly 's Chris Wink.

The other keynoters are Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico who's served in several high-level roles in DC and is extremely knowledgeable about what's happening there, so he might include some interesting pre-election insights, and Dara Torres, 5-time Olympic Swimmer with 12 medals.

The other primary emphasis of the conference is healthcare, and in particular what PACT refers to as "digital health" covering a wide range of digitally driven healthcare products and services. A general session on Tuesday will be devoted to the subject. PACT, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of SEPA, EY, Fairmount Partners and The CEO Council for Growth have joined to produce a comprehensive analysis of the digital health opportunity in the region, including investment and exit activity over the past several years and a look at the healthcare and IT assets that make Philadelphia a magnet for healthcare innovation. The results, which should be valuable, will be presented at the session and released publicly.


In addition, one healthcare panel will focus on clinical trials, which is a huge business around here both for Pharma and the digital technologies needed to support them, and there will be another panel on mobile technology in healthcare IT.

Two other panels interest me in particular: a group of VCs from outside the region
will discuss why the Philly area is an interesting place to look for deals, and a group of
prominent local CIOs present the IT buyers' perspective, something that's always important to understand.

There will be 45 presenting ventures in three tracks: early-stage, healthcare and technology. Presenters range from fairly established firms (such as RJMetrics, which probably squirms as being named part of the establishment) to others most readers haven't heard of yet. But they were chosen through a rigorous selection process.

When asked what trends stood out in the area, Purcell mentioned the growing number of startups that merit attention, and added that the conference format has been changed to reflect that trend.


You can download the Philly IMPACT Mobile APP here. Also, there should a few sharply reduced-price tickets left for qualified entrepreneurs.