It's the classic impulse: make lemonade out of economic lemons. 2011 was the year of the startup. When the job market slumped, ingenuity kicked in, and entrepreneurs had places to gather. The Quorum at the University City Science Center opened to provide a common space for entrepreneurs, hosting events like Philly Tech Meetup, which drew increasing crowds to its monthly demos of startups.
Along with the Science Center's continued support of entrepreneurs,
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania provided funding for many local companies including
AboutOne. BFTP's Navy Yard neighbor
GPIC has stepped in to centralize the future of energy efficiency.
Bob Moul, of Dell
Boomi, took the helm at
Philly Startup Leaders, which is re-tooling its mission while putting together a pair of fruitful
Philly Startup Weekends.
DreamIt Ventures 2011 gave a boost to 14 fledgling companies, including frontrunners
Cloudmine,
ElectNext,
SnipSnap,
Metalayer, and
Spling, all to remain in Philadelphia. Yasmine Mustafa, a past DreamIt participant, and most recently a
Philadev Ventures member, recently sold her startup
123LinkIt to national content syndication network Netline.
Writer: Sue Spolan