Entrepreneurship : Innovation & Job News

Anyone whose attempted vegetarianism knows eating more plants can mean endless hours in the kitchen. There are special groceries and lengthy chopping sessions, not to mention the new-recipe-learning-curve. Conshohocken-based Real Food Works is launching a weekly subscription meal service offering fresh, local, plant-based entres with vegitarian and ominvor options. They are currently hiring a web engineer and expect to hire more positions early next year.

“With a plant-based diet you’re working pretty much from scratch,” Mike Krupit, co-found of Real Food Works and dietary convert, explains. “On Sunday I would spend a good four or five hours in the kitchen cooking four or five days’ worth of meals for myself. You’re not dealing with complex ingredients, but in order to get something to taste good and have a variety of ingredients requires a whole bunch of time.” 

At heart, Real Food Works is a tech business that connects customers to local chefs. Early in the week, when kitchens are staffed but don’t get many customers, the company commissions meals that meet stringent nutritional requirements. They currently matches customers with kitchens at Trattoria Totaro, Miss Rachel's Pantry, Eat Your Heart Out Edibles, Turnersville, Su Tao Cafe, Earth Elements, Stella Blu, Gypsy Saloon, and Wine Thief.

As Krupit explains, responsible eating has been chalked up to personal education. Someone looking to change their diet might read a book, follow a website, or join a meetup group. Real Food Works aims to give national traction to the plant-based movement by selling it. Krupit, and his cofounder, Lucinda Duncalfe, are experienced tech entreprenures and avid plant eaters, who say changing their diet changed their lives.They expect that other professionals will embrace the opportunity to make the switch without the hassle.

“When you look at national subscription meal plans, their food sucks,”  Krupit says. “We provide high-quality food that’s fresh and we came up with a model that can grow across the country.” 

Source: Mike Krupit, Real Food Works
Writer: Dana Henry

In a new race to the moon , a young Pittsburgh firm has completed a prototype robot to prospect for ice at the lunar poles. Astrobotic Technology unveiled its Polaris moon rover last month for delivery to NASA next summer.
 
Propelling Astrobotic's work, says the company's Jason Calaiaro, is the Google Lunar X PRIZE, an international competition offering $30 million to the first privately-funded team to safely land a robot on the moon that can travel 500 meters and send back video, images and data. (There are 26 teams competing worldwide, and Pennsylvania has two: Astrobotic and the Penn State Lunar Lion Team.)
 
Such a robot could cost as much as $100 million to produce, says Calaiaro, so realizing a business model that supports the research and development is essential, and "not just because it's a cool thing to do. Though it's an incredibly cool thing to do."
 
So Astrobotic has won $3.6 million in nine lunar contracts from NASA since 2008, when it spun off from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. The young company currently employs six and is adding four new positions, with another two likely in the first quarter of 2013.
 
Equally significant, as of January 1, Astrobotic is moving off the CMU campus to its own 5,000-square-foot space. "We can build a rover to put on the moon in that space," says Calaiaro. "Its really a tremendous step to be able to set up a sustainable enterprise like this with the lofty goal of landing on the moon." 

Source: Jason Calaiaro, Astrobotic
Writer: Elise Vider

From inception, the founders of AppreNet saw their online practical skills consortium reaching a range of professionals. The Drexel University-based startup in University City, Philadelphia continues serving legal education with LawMeets and is now piloting K12Meets, a parallel tool for teachers. They seek full- and part-time web developers and a business-development expert.

At virtual ‘meets,’ a user posts a specific work-related problem and receives feedback from a network of peers as well as advice from experts. Top peer-reviewed responses are catalogued in a resource library. The 'meets' format is based on the teaching method of Karl Okamoto, a professor at Drexel’s Earle Mack School of Law, who cofounded ApprenNet with Emily Foote, a former student, and Paul Tzen. It may prove invaluable for teachers, who encounter social and structural complications when they enter the classroom and have little time or financial resources to seek outside support. K12Meets could help with a classroom managment issue or with eveluation of teacher performance.

“There’s a disconnect in graduate school, where teachers are trained, between practice and theory,” Foote, who is a former public school teacher, says. “There tends to be more of an emphasis on theory and when you get into the field you’re kind of on your own. K12 meets provides an easy way to gain more practical experiences.”

ApprenNet is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and anticipates multiple revenue sources: providing continuing education credits, sponsorship from related institutions, selling archived meets as graduate education-material, and small fees for user participation. Foote, who participated in live meets in Okamoto’s classroom, believes the opportunities for low cost, scalable apprenticeships are limitless.

“I never had an educational experience as rich as I did in law school through how Karl taught,” she says.

Source: Emily Foote, ApprenNet
Writer: Dana Henry

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University City Science Center received the Sal Buccieri Memorial Venture Impact Award during the 15^th annual Early Stage East, venture capital conference, on Thursday (Oct. 4). Previously, this award, which honors individuals and organizations that help early stage companies flourish in Philadelphia, was largely given to venture capitalists.

“[The University City Science Center] has created a true center of innovation,” David Freschman, Founder of ESE, says.  “It offers counsel, resources, facility and thought-leadership which has been the impetus for the launch and growth of many companies in our region that currently employ thousands of employees.”

“This award is especially meaningful as we embark on our 50th anniversary year,” Stephen Tang, President & CEO of UCSC, says of the acceptance.  “I did not have the honor of knowing Sal Buccieri, but from what I've heard about him, he exemplified the pay-it-forward mentality we need to nurture a thriving culture of entrepreneurship and innovation.”

During the conference, 25 technology startups from Club Pitch presented to venture capitalists and angle investors. Freschman says many participating companies gain their first-round investment from contacts made at ESE. Innovation Capital Advisors, where Freschman serves as Managing Principal, invests up to 70 percent of their capital in companies that participated in Club Pitch. Among the 16 presenters from the Philadelphia region, Freschman cites Snip Snap, Localty, People Linx and Cloud Confidence as companies to look out for.

“Philadelphia is very much a city driven by ‘substantive’ enterprise,” Freschman says. “These are businesses that will grow because of customer acquisition and sales growth versus publicity and marketing presence. Maybe they aren’t as sexy as what you read in INC magazine, but [Philly companies] are really productive.”

Freschman believes the greater Philadelphia public, however, needs to look beyond banking and insurance to find the real success story of our local enterprise community.

“We need to really praise and recognize these emerging companies” he says.

Source: David Freschman, Early Stage East
Writer: Dana Henry

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A new crop of startups emerged from Philly Startup Weekend 4.0, held at University Of The Arts this past weekend, with some refreshingly accessible concepts. The winner, Voxx.io, founded by visiting entrepreneur, Josh Hudnall, will use mobile technology to customize the music heard in bars, restaurants and coffee shops to the specific taste of their patrons. In second place, Feed Me, founded by Philly native and Startup Weekend newcomer, Jiate Zhang, proposes an AirBnB-type web platform that connects pizza-wary strangers with people who love to cook.  Third place went to Dreamit Ventures alum Michael Raber, for Boxly, a spread-sheet based mobile app that will allow complex on-the-go data collection for both individual and group uses.

Forty-seven pitches, ranging from crowd sourced dental care to street parking aps, were narrowed down to 12 finalists, including a team of local high school students. Startup Weekend had fewer finalists than past startup weekends, but each team was larger with more diversified talent. 

“Best bit of feedback I got was ‘This was the most communal startup weekend I’ve been to.’” says event organizer Chris Baglieri says.  “I think that’s pretty rad.”

Of all the gifted teams, what determined the winners?

“You can connect with them, maybe a little more so than some of the others," says Baglieri. “Like Voxx.io. I mean you walk into the bars and you see these old jukebox CD things. Those are just kind of antiquated so you can see the appeal.”

In the final day, Feed Me pulled together it’s winning presentation without a programmer or designer and no workable demo. “I’ve worked for a couple of startups doing financial strategy so I’ve seen the full scope of ‘this is awesome, things are going well’ to ‘Oh my God, I think we might not exist anymore.’”  Zhang says. “The thing about Sartup Weekend is it’s really effective at simulating those experiences within a day.”

Hot off the recent acquisition of his first start-up, UXFlip, by appRenaissance, Raber delivered again.  He’s looking forward to building Boxly and bringing it to the app market. “I have this tablet and I have this Iphone and I’m carrying them everywhere and I’d rather carry that than my laptop,” Raber explains. “Yet it’s so difficult to get information into those devices. I probably have two dozen aps that deal with to-do list or organizing information. I started thinking how can we build a platform that enables people to do what you do on a spreadsheet? ”

Raber was accompanied by his 13 year-old partner and son, Zachary.

“It’s an interesting time to have kids. There’s so much going on in the world and things are changing so quickly, specifically in the technology area.” Raber says. “I like to joke around and say in another 10 years I’ll be working for his startup.”

As for Hudnall, Voxx.io is set to move forward after developing a solid team of six and making some vital connections. “We proved our concept,” Hudnall says. “The biggest thing we needed to know was that we could see a check-in, in real-time and that we could match it up with a musical profile.”

So will Hudnall, who is principal developer and founder of fastPXL, move from Denver, Col., to Philly to realize his latest dream?

“I’m not ruling anything out.” Hudnall concedes. “Philly’s awesome.”

Source: Chris Baglieri, Philly Startup Weekend; Michael Raber, Voxx.io; Josh Hudnall, fastPXL
Writer: Dana Henry

Technology is the common denominator among four startups that received a total of $370,000 in investments from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central & Northern PA earlier this month.
 
"The goal is to create and retain jobs, assist in the development of new technologies, and support emerging tech companies as they grow and increase sales," BFT/CNP says in a news release.
 
Erie-based CE Convergence offers a convenient, easy-to-use continuing education management tool and online marketplace for professionals with licensing requirements. The software is initially focused on the accounting profession, but can be easily adapted to healthcare, law, teaching, real estate, and insurance. 
 
Founded in State College, Ascent Bio-Nano provides high-performance, low cost, miniature flow cytometry devices used for biological studies, therapeutics, and even the medical diagnosis of HIV and cancer. The company has filed for seven U.S. patents and invention disclosures for this device through Penn State University. 
 
Lasers for Innovative Solutions (L4IS) is a State-College based manufacturer of electronic inspection and monitoring devices with technology capable of decomposing physical objects and digitally reconstructing them as an interactive 3D model.  This is important as many large companies are seeking new methods to inspect high value assets such as genetically modified crops and gas well core samples.  
 
Located in Cumberland County, CrimeWatch US  has developed a software platform designed to operate on web and mobile technologies that allows more than 33,000 domestic law enforcement agencies to manage and control fugitive/offender updates.  The public can easily access information across social media networks and other forms of electronic communication.  
 
Source: Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central & Northern PA
Writer: Elise Vider