Each finalist will present to the judges a brief power point presentation starting at 2:00 P.M. At the conclusion of the day’s events, two winners will be awarded $25,000 by C. Alan Walker, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED).

The finalists and an overview of their projects were announced in April, 2012:

• Aither Chemicals, LLC – Conversion of ethane to petrochemicals
• EMS Energy Institute – Converting natural gas to DME as a transportation fuel
• Greenways, Inc. – Mobile filter press treatment of shale wastewater           
• HydroConfidence, Inc.-Hydrocarbon and cement integrity detection for groundwater and the freshwater casing
• J&J Truck Bodies & Trailers – Dust control to eliminate emissions during fracing
• Larson Transportation Institute – Optimizing dual fuel diesel/natural gas engines
• MicroEnergies, LLC – Microchannel Fischer Tropsh natural gas to liquid fuel well head application
• OsComp Ltd – Rotary compressor that allows natural gas & NGL to be piped together from the well head
• Polymics Ltd – Lightweight, durable, reusable leak proof mats for pad construction
• ProChem Tech International, Inc.- Sequential precipitation and fractional crystallization treatment of shale wastewater
• Seraph Energy, LLC – Engine conversion system from diesel to all natural gas
• S4 Worldwide, LLC – Mobile real-time site monitoring and security.

 The contest, which is offering a total of $50,000 in cash prizes for the two best shale gas-oriented innovations, new product ideas, or service concepts was co-sponsored by the Marcellus

Shale Coalition (www.marcelluscoalition.org), Little Pine Resources (www.littlepineresources.com), Chesapeake Energy (http://www.chesapeake.com), First National Bank (http://www.fnb-online.com),and Schlumberger (www.slb.com). The judges, all of whom are senior gas industry experts, include representatives from the sponsoring companies as well as  CONSOL Energy Inc and Range Resources.

Do you know the legal requirements for seeking crowdfunding?  What about the type of disclosures that you need to make to potential investors?  Do you know the circumstances in which there is a potential for personal liability if your company gets sued?  Do you know when you can start crowdfunding?

To learn how to legally take advantage of crowdfunding,  sign up to hear Sara Hanks, the CEO of CrowdCheck and a former senior SEC lawyer with over 30 years of securities law experience, and Brian Knight, CrowdCheck Director of Entrepreneur Services, talk about your rights and responsibilities when seeking crowdfunding.  The presentation will cover how the law has changed to allow crowdfunding, which companies are eligible, how much money you can raise, where you can raise it, and the legal requirements and pitfalls facing companies that use crowdfunding. 

Monday, June 4, 2012

3:00 – 4:00 pm -Room 243 – Technology Center – 200 Innovation Blvd. – University Park, PA  16802 

Contact Don McCandless, Ben Franklin Transformation Business Services Network, 814-865-2040 or dlm74@psu.edu

 To register:  http://www.sbdc.psu.edu/seminar-registration.asp

This is a free session. Seating is limited to the first 50 registrants, so sign up early!

Ben Franklin Talent Connect Partners with Swarthmore Future Entrepreneurs Program

May 15, 2012

Pennsylvania (www.sep.benfranklin.org, www.swarthmore.edu) – Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College have partnered to provide Swarthmore College students with entrepreneurial internship opportunities at emerging technology growth enterprises in the Greater Philadelphia region.

Ben Franklin Talent Connect provides interns with real-world entrepreneurial experience at growing Ben Franklin portfolio companies.  Our companies benefit from dynamic young talent.

Swarthmore College students eager to learn more about entrepreneurship have a new opportunity to explore this challenging and exciting career path. In response to growing interest, and with the financial assistance of an anonymous alumnus donor, the College’s Career Services Office launched the Swarthmore Future Entrepreneurs program. The program provides funding to students who complete internships with start-up companies. Through these internships, students will receive hands-on experience within a start-up, and work closely with experienced entrepreneurs to learn how businesses are created and managed.

“This partnership between our Ben Franklin Talent Connect and Swarthmore’s Future Entrepreneurs internship programs is a win-win for Swarthmore students and our portfolio companies,” said RoseAnn B. Rosenthal, President & CEO of Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

As Nancy Burkett, Swarthmore’s Director of Career Services notes, “We believe Swarthmore provides the ideal learning environment to foster the creativity and innovation that are hallmarks of successful entrepreneurs. Our goal is to provide students with the experiences, education and resources necessary to explore sustainable business and social enterprises so they can envision the impact they will make in the world.”

Seven Swarthmore students will participate in the Swarthmore Future Entrepreneurs program in this inaugural year. Each will hold a summer internship with a Ben Franklin portfolio company.  The students will serve the companies in a variety of capacities, including work in the investment, marketing, engineering, and social media/communication realms. The goal is to expand the program in the years to come.

About Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania is a national, award winning organization for Stimulating Entrepreneurial Potential, through entrepreneurship, technology and innovation.  For thirty years, Ben Franklin has provided the Capital, Knowledge and Networks that help innovative enterprises compete in the global marketplace, generating wealth and supporting regional economic growth.  Ben Franklin has invested more than $155 million to grow more than 1,750 regional enterprises, across all areas of technology.  It has launched university/industry partnerships that accelerate scientific discoveries to commercialization. Ben Franklin is part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Technology Partnership.

For additional information, please visit www.sep.benfranklin.org, Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter.

BFTP/SEP Contact:

Jaron J. Rhodes
(215) 972-6700, ext. 3214
jaron@sep.benfranklin.org

About Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a highly selective college of liberal arts and engineering. Since its founding in 1864, Swarthmore has given students the knowledge, insight, skills, and experience to become leaders for the common good. A student/faculty ratio of 8:1 ensures that students have meaningful engagement with their professors, preparing them to translate the skills and understanding gained at Swarthmore into the mark they want to make on the world. The College’s Honors program features small groups of students working closely with faculty and peers; an emphasis on independent learning; and a final examination by outside scholars. Swarthmore’s 425-acre arboretum campus is located 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia.

Contact the Swarthmore College Communications Office at news@swarthmore.edu (610) 328-8533, or learn more about the College at www.swarthmore.edu.

Mike Armstrong, May 14, 2012

Six young tech companies received a total of $675,000 in investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Zonoff Inc. of Malvern received the largest amount — $200,000 — as it develops a “home-automation system” that would automatically perform household tasks, such as turning off lights at night or adjusting the thermostat at various times of the day. (My request to automate: Taking out the garbage.)

To the state-funded Ben Franklin organization, which has been investing in companies like this since the early ’80s, Zonoff is a known commodity. It was founded by Mike Harris, who began AnySource Media — also funded by Ben Franklin — which was acquired by DivX Inc. for $15 million in 2009. And Zonoff itself is a spin-off of BuLogics, which received $150,000 from the economic-development agency in November 2009.

GroupAppz Inc. and PeopleLinx L.L.C. each received $150,000. Started in 2010, GroupAppz in Fort Washington developed an app called GameOnz to help coaches, young players, and their parents coordinate practices and games. CEO Stephen Layne is a serial entrepreneur who ran LaxPower.com, a West Chester online lacrosse site that was acquired by the Active Network Inc. in 2007.

PeopleLinx, of Philadelphia, has developed tools to help businesses use social-media technologies more effectively. Its CEO is Nathan Egan, who was an early employee at LinkedIn Corp. in Mountain View, Calif.

Also receiving funding were:

Cross X Platform L.L.C. in Audubon, Montgomery County, a cloud-based software company focused on the professional services sector. It received $100,000.

SnipSnap App L.L.C., which has an app that scans, saves, and redeems printed coupons using a mobile phone. The start-up, which received $50,000, is currently housed at the Project Liberty Digital Incubator in The Inquirer Building at 400 N. Broad St.

Syandus Inc., of Exton, which uses three-dimensional simulations and game technology to help doctors learn to diagnose and manage diseases. It received $25,000. The Ben Franklin program also invested $150,000 in it in 2009.

Read More: http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_armstrong/20120514_SEER_Interactive_is_Phila__rsquo_s_only_Inner_City_100_firm.html#ixzz1urf8zNDT

Peter Key, May 11, 2012

In what could be a sign that fundraising for tech companies is getting a little easier, three of them in the area recently raised $6.6 million in private securities sales.

Virtual Piggy Inc., the Philadelphia-based operator of a website that enables parents to set up accounts from which their children can anonymously make online purchases, raised a little more than $6 million, according to its CEO and co-founder Jo Webber.

CloudMine LLC raised $480,000 in a sale of debt and options, warrants or rights, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing reported by FormDs.com. The Philadelphia company has developed a technology platform that mobile application developers can use for the back end of their apps.

Timesight Systems Inc. raised $115,000 in a private-equity sale, according to a filing it made with the SEC. The Mount Laurel, N.J., company has technology that allows high-definition surveillance systems to be supported on one-tenth of the server and storage space they usually require.

The fundings came after what would have been a slow first quarter for venture-capital funding in the area except for one massive deal — a $71.4 million funding of Exton-based iPipeline, which provides software to the insurance industry.

Without that deal, venture capitalists would only have invested $70.1 million in companies in eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware in the first quarter, according to the MoneyTree Report, which is put out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Assocation using data from Thomson Reuters. That total would have been the lowest since the first quarter of 2009 when companies in the region raised only $43.8 million, according to the MoneyTree.

Virtual Piggy, which will use the money to try to gain widespread acceptance of its offering, didn’t have a difficult time raising money, Webber said in an email.

The company “has delivered on timelines laid down previously,” she said. “The consumer marketing campaign is a natural next step in the go to market plan.”

Timesight’s funding was connected to a nearly $3.2 million investment the company got in early last year, according to its CEO, Charles Foley. As a result of that investment, New Venture Partners of Murray Hill, N.J., and Contour Venture Partners of New York, which made it, had the right to invest more in Timesight and they did, Foley said.

Venture capitalists are a little more willing to invest in tech companies than they have been recently, but mostly in high-growth areas, such as cloud computing, storage management and information security, he said.

“We’re very fortunate that we’re in a strong area — storage and security — and we have solid, strong investors who want to invest more and grow the company further,” Foley said.

Another indicator that venture money may be getting easier to raise was attendance at the Angel Venture Fair, which was held last month at the Union League of Philadelphia.

The event drew about 400 people, its best attendance ever, according to Marc Kramer, its executive director. One-hundred-seven companies, also the most ever, from 10 states applied to present at it, Kramer said.

“I think with the stock market going up, and the economy … rebounding, there is a higher level of interest at all levels, from people wanting to start their own companies to people wanting to invest in them,” he said.

Read More: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/print-edition/2012/05/11/virtual-piggy-cloud-mine-timesight.html?page=all

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) named Ben Franklin TechVentures®the 2012 Randall M. Whaley National Incubator of the Year on May 8 at NBIA’s International Conference on Business Incubation in Atlanta. Ben Franklin TechVentures also won the Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year, Technology Focus at the NBIA event. Ben Franklin TechVentures is owned and managed by the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) on Lehigh University’s Mountaintop Campus in Bethlehem, PA. 

Ben Franklin TechVentures provides a high-energy and professional environment in which to facilitate connections between early-stage technology firms and the funding, people, technology, colleges and universities, and other resources they need to prosper. Since 1983, the program has been fueling economic growth throughout northeastern Pennsylvania and has graduated 55 successful companies. 

Beginning in 1983 with 10,000 square feet of incubator space in a former photography lab on the research campus of Bethlehem Steel, BFTP/NEP converted photo processing rooms into wet labs and offices, becoming one of only a handful of technology incubators in the U.S. at the time. When the final Bethlehem Steel operation, a coatings research facility, closed in 2005 and became part of Lehigh’s campus, BFTP/NEP purchased the 45-year-old facility and converted it into Ben Franklin TechVentures, with 35,000 square feet of rentable space for incubator clients. The $8 million renovation project was completed in 2007, opening with 13 clients. 

Just 18 months later, with the facility nearing its 29-client capacity, the need for an expansion was clear. In October 2011, Ben Franklin TechVentures² was completed, adding 47,000 square feet of space and providing the incubator with room to house up to 40 clients.

Business incubation programs like Ben Franklin TechVentures catalyze the process of starting and growing companies by providing entrepreneurs with the expertise, networks and tools they need to make their ventures successful. NBIA estimates that in 2005 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 27,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenue of more than $17 billion. Approximately 7,000 business incubators operate worldwide. 

The National Business Incubation Association is the world’s leading organization advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship. Each year, the NBIA Incubation Awards honor the business incubation programs, graduates and client companies that exemplify the best of the industry. 

“The judges for NBIA’s Incubation Awards program were unanimous in their selection of Ben Franklin TechVentures for their highest honor, the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year Award,” said Tim King, NBIA International Programs Operations Manager. “Our judges feel that Ben Franklin TechVentures best exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding business incubation program, and serves as a model that other incubators will follow when striving to best serve their client companies.”  

The 2012 Whaley award represents a noteworthy repeat honor. In 2001, the Ben Franklin Business Incubator, predecessor to Ben Franklin TechVentures, won this same top worldwide incubator award.  

The awards were announced locally for the first time at the Ben Franklin i xchange event on Tuesday evening, May 8. 

About the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) links companies with business and technical experts, universities, funding, and other resources to help them prosper through innovation. The organization is a non-profit corporation that is part of a four-center, state-funded economic development initiative. The Ben Franklin program was created by the Commonwealth in 1983 to play a leadership role in strengthening regional economies, building the state’s technology economy, and creating and retaining high-wage, high-skilled jobs.

BFTP/NEP’s strategy encompasses three key areas:

1. Developing early-stage, technology-oriented companies;
2. Helping established manufacturers creatively apply new technology and business practices; and
3. Promoting an innovative community-wide infrastructure that fosters a favorable business environment for high-growth companies. 

Since 1983, the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania has achieved the following results:

• Created 15,479 new jobs
• Retained 21,459 existing jobs
• Started 429 new companies
• Developed 1,127 new products and processes 

The northeastern center is headquartered on the campus of Lehigh University, and also operates, an award-winning incubator/post-incubator facility, on Lehigh’s campus.

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