DreamIt Ventures Funding Day
DreamIt Ventures held its first Funding Day today. Tech Crunch provides a synopsis of the ventures which pitched. DreamIt is the Philadelphia-area seed fund program, similar to Y Combinator and TechStars, which ran for the first time this summer.
The comments posted on TechCrunch have been fairly harsh and critical of the DreamIt companies. From speaking with one of creators of the DreamIt program, as well as a founder of one of the DreamIt companies, I can say that there are certainly very admirable motivations in developing DreamIt and the founders seem to be as qualified as any others going through these type of seed funding programs. Time will tell whether the ventures can raise the funding required for growth while remaining in Philadelphia. Hopefully, for the sake of the founders in the program, as well as for PSU entrepreneurs seeking funding within Pennsylvania, the closure rate will be comparable to that of similar programs.
Access to follow-on funding and mentors are the two key reasons why a seed stage venture would take part in one of these programs. Watching the closure rate for follow-on funding will be one indicator for how seriously PSU entrepreneurs should consider DreamIt for its second class next summer. The DreamIt blog discusses the weekly mentors from the summer - an interesting assortment of Philadelphia-area business leaders.
Thus far, based on the DreamIt blog, one company has already received funding, from Ben Franklin Technology Partners. Ben Franklin was the funding engine that helped Penn State’s Diamondback founders grow their venture.
(My Google alert led me to another site, Phillypreneurs, covering Philly area entrepreneurship. This page states that there are other companies in the DreamIt class which didn’t pitch as part of Funding Day.)



You’ll be happy to know that there are a couple PSU alum in the Dream It program earning their keep along side a majority of Ivy Leaguers in Dream It companies. A VC/Angel who came down from NYC for the pitches remarked how he enjoyed how much more diverse the companies were at Dream It in comparison to Y-Combinator. At Y-C, he complained, they seemed to force engineering down their throat with every pitch while DI teams covered areas as diverse as publishing to alarm clocks to mobile games.
Nice blog. Keep up the good work!
Here’s hoping they get they all close, but as Chris Cera of Vuzit spilled, ‘No one’s going to die just yet’ even if they don’t get funded immediately.