Vuzit, a DreamIt company, receives additional funding
February 8, 2009
Great news for a Philadelphia-based and DreamIt-funded startup (and one led by a Penn Stater!): Vuzit receives $100,000 in additional funding from Innovation Philadelphia, as recipient of the Creative Economy Investment Fund (CEIF) award. In addition to this award funding, the company also announced (along with Center Networks) on its blog that it has completed an angle round of funding.
This is also great news for a Penn State entrepreneur — The business strategist on the Vuzit team is Penn State MBA student Dave Noreen (class of 2009)! Dave is currently VP of Sales & Marketing for Vuzit.
Phillypreneurs has a nice interview with the Vuzit team.
Announcing the “Nittany Lion Early Stage Venture Capital” Conference
January 30, 2009
This March, the Smeal College of Business is hosting the inaugural Nittany Lion Early Stage Venture Capital conference. Details are available on the conference web site.
From the web site: “The conference theme is bridging the gap between venture capitalists, angel investors, and academia by bringing various perspectives for collaboration between these three communities.”
Based on the agenda listed on the site, presently there are four panel sessions scheduled:
- Panel 1: The Current State of Early-Stage Venture Capital: Investing in technology of the future
- Panel 2: Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists: How to make the relationship work
- Panel 3: Micro-Equity Funds: New models for early-stage investing
- Panel 4: Academia as an Early-Stage Collaborator: A resource-based view of how academia can add value to early-stage venture investing
The conference organizing team reports that thus far, they have received commitments from 14 panelists “representing active institutional and corporate venture capital, independent angel groups, technology incubators, and academic experts to discuss critical issues facing early-stage venture investing.”
The event will be held on March 20, 2009, from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at The Penn Stater Conference Center and Hotel, University Park, PA.
Chicken and Egg
May 23, 2008
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article, Facebook Ignites Entrepreneurial Spirit at Harvard. The article discusses the Havard students who have been inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s runaway success with Facebook and have attempted to mirror his efforts. As you would expect, the article indicates a handful of startups have been working to follow in Facebook’s footsteps, with varying degrees of success. The article also mentions that Harvard has seen spiking interest in various entrepreneurial contests and events on campus. Harvard has even gone as far as to relax its policies around allowing student-run ventures to operate in its dormitories.
Recent days have also seen several interesting blog posts by David Adewumi emerge on the Penn State student-run site ISTBuilding.com. The first generated a lot of discussion regarding how the Penn State community compares to the typical university bastions of startups and entrepreneurship. The post which follows this proceeds to highlight some of the successes this past year has seen.
The blog posts complement the focus of the WSJ article, in that they raise the discussion of what is required to continue growing Penn State’s entrepreneurship community.
David includes a good list of the recent successes:
1. Several Penn State companies have launched within the past few years and are on their way to being successful.
2. In the last year, the formal entrepreneurial community has had a big boost via Lion Launch Pad, Blue Lion Networks, Invention 2 Venture, Ideablob, Ideapitch, and a few news-worthy events for Penn State co-founded teams.
3. In the past few months, the informal entrepreneurial community has had a big boost via blogs like IST Building, Matt Maisel, PSU startups, and get togethers, like the one we had at the Indian Pavilion. With ideas like one Varun has been tossing around about informal TED gatherings to watch and discuss the videos, I’m sure this will only grow in the next months.
4. Next year will kick off with not one, but two, major startup events for the community. (Startup Weekend and Invention2Venture)
Forward progress such as these will only help to continue to provide inspiration for the community. It is also fantastic to see the passion evident in the discussion generated as a result of David’s posts. Moving forward, it will be important to focus that passion on finding additional ways to build out the community, like assisting in building ventures from fledgling innovative concepts, connecting ventures and aspiring entrepreneurs, organizing informal meetups, and attracting more events for the community to rally around.
Make no mistake - the past year has seen a strengthening culture shift with Penn State growing more entrepreneurial. It will be a slow process moving forward even so. More can always be done, though, so harness the energy shown in the blog comments and channel it into finding new ways to grow the community!
Penn State Live: Erik Davidson, Triple Overtime Promotions, and Buzby Networks
May 16, 2008
Earlier this week, Penn State Live featured an article on Erik Davidson and his two companies, Triple Overtime Promotions Buzby Networks. Davidson, a graduate of the class of 2008 with a BS in Electric Engineering, helped found Triple Overtime Promotions which has expanded beyond producing PSU-branded magnets to include other colleges and universities around the nation. Buzby Networks is Davidson’s second company, focusing on applications of the ZigBee wireless protocol. The article mentions that Buzby has received grants to develop the technology: Buzby received $18,000 through the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) Advanced E-Teams grant program.
Davidson will continue his education at PSU with a masters in Electric Engineering this fall. He was a Schreyer Honors scholar.
IdeaPitch Winner Announced
May 8, 2008
Matthew Gross, founder of MG Walls LLC, a materials science and engineering student was named the winner of the Penn State inaugural Idea Pitch competition. Matthew’s company won the contest with its business plan detailing the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of PolyWall, a synthetic alternative to drywall.
“The product offers customers ease of installation, long life expectancy, fire-resistance, and lower monthly utility bills. It’s also a green building product created using partially recycled/reclaimed plastic products. Additionally, PolyWall is designed so that virtually all installation procedures can remain the same, making it attractive to builders and contractors who use traditional drywall.”
Uliifi, “a Web site that would manage lost and found for large institutions, connecting those who lost property with those who found it to negotiate a return” took second place and Sushi Tokyo, “a sushi lunch box distribution business based out of Lansdale, Pa.” placed third. The top three teams won assistance to move their concepts to fruition and will share $1,000 in prize money.
More than 30 teams initially registered for the competition.
The full announcement is available on Penn State Live.
It’s fantastic to see another set of innovative ideas emerge from Penn State students!
Another Penn State idea named finalist on Ideablob!
April 25, 2008
Penn State students are doing well on ideablob.com! Matt Allison’s Personal Trainer concept has been named a finalist for April. Matt is a senior majoring in Economics and minoring in Engineering Entrepreneurship.
More information on the concept is below – please visit ideablob.com and support Matt’s idea!
Personal Trainer on a portable touch screen device that syncs with a fitness based social networking website
Individuals begin fitness programs each year, but set unrealistic goals or improperly structure their fitness programs and eventually lose interest. I’m developing a portable touch-screen device equipped with a heart rate monitor, acting as a personal trainer. The device uploads workouts from our website, where based off an individual’s fitness goals, they can build their own workout or use one of ours. The device displays progress charts, advice for future workouts, and can incorporate daily nutrition information. The website also functions as a social networking website centered around device results for exercise gurus, athletes, and anyone who enjoys living a healthy lifestyle.
Mashavu wins February Ideablob Competition!
Aaron Fleishman, a Penn State senior majoring in Chemisty, won $10,000 from ideablob.com’s February contest for Mashavu.com. Mashavu’s concept is a cell-phone based system for disaster relief. Read more on Mashavu’s blog and on ideablob.com. Congratulations, Aaron & team!
Further Updates
February 27, 2008
There has been quite a lot of discussion in the blogosphere around the Lion Launch Pad and the Blue Line recently. Much of it appears to have been driven by a recent article in the Centre Daily Times. As of February 8, 2008, Dave Barton requested that the offices at 234 E. College Ave., Suite 2342 no longer be affiliated with the Lion Launch Pad. Dave wanted to realign the focus of the space, which he was providing. It appears that this space will be renamed The Blue Line and Dave will continue his strong support of Penn State and Centre County entrepreneurs. We certainly wish him all of the best and look forward to continuing to work together on initiatives in the future.
Dave is a strong supporter of making Penn State and the Centre Region more entrepreneurial. His help in 2007 was key in getting the Lion Launch Pad started, and he should be recognized for his significant financial support and time commitment to the Lion Launch Pad.
The Lion Launch Pad has initiated a search for alternative space and we are currently exploring our options. Additionally, Liz Kisenwether and Robert Macy have begun open mentoring sessions on-campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We are also in the process of launching a new web site.
If you are interested in the mentoring sessions, please contact Liz or Robert for an appointment during the following time blocks:
Liz - Kunkle Lounge Tuesdays 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Robert - 429 Business Building Thursdays 1:30-3:30
We certainly appreciate the strong interest in entrepreneurial programs related to Penn State and look forward to continuing to support aspiring entrepreneurs.
An inside look at past and present (and future) PSU startups.
February 2, 2008
I thought it’d be in the best interest of the PSU startup community, if we started getting some perspectives from past and present startups.
A lot of us have questions –’ how do I get started?’, ‘how do I know it’s a good idea,’ ‘ do i have to draft a business plan?’
I believe one of our greatest resources is the base of alums who have already been successful and their wealth of knowledge.
So for the next few weeks, I’ll be trying to gather some questions from faculty, mentors, and the students themselves that they think are important and useful to ask.
Hopefully from there, we can find some successful PSU startups and start learning from their experiences.
If you have anything, feel free to shoot me a comment/ suggestion/ question at daa182 at psu dot edu.
There are no superheroes
December 16, 2007
Everybody knows some of the biggest entrepreneurs in recent history: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but we often fail to give credit to those who have helped them.
There exists an aura of the sole programmer hacking away all hours of the day, or a visionary making key decisions in the clutch by him or herself.
Assuredly, there have been many instances when those who have risen to the top have done extraordinary tasks, but more often than not, more than just skill, they have had people who share in their dream.
We have a familiar word for this phenomena: networking.
Aside from the obvious helpers: family, friends, and teachers; there is often time a key person to the story that is often neglected when the founders go prime time.
Bill Gates had Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer, among others. Andy Bechtolsheim, the founder of Sun Microsystems, gave two guys $100,000 for their Backrub search engine. That would be Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google fame.
Even the Weebly guys, who I recently did a story on, received key help from an IST professor, as well as PSU alum and Xobni Co-founder Matt Brezina.
I just recently learned how powerful Penn State networking is. I just got off the phone with the Chairwoman of the Israeli Venture Capital Association — albeit I was writing an article for a major Silicon Valley online blog, and not doing business– all because of several PSU connections.
I didn’t use to think this way– I told my Dad I would never come to Penn State, although he would try to convince me that it was the right thing to do. In every place he has traveled around the world, he would always receive help because of the Penn State connection in places like Colombia, Nigeria, South Africa, Qatar and several other nations.
Before I was born, my Dad moved the family to State College to teach here at Penn State. Early October, I met with his first graduate student , who is now high up in the IST department. This man referred me to the above-referenced IST professor, who in turn referenced me to the Lion Launch Pad, where I recently applied, and also tipped me off to the Weebly story.
Writing for the Daily Collegian, I pitched the Weebly story to my editors–and through Dan Veltri, I interviewed Xobni’s Brezina, who recently connected me with editors at two major tech and venture capital blogs, one of which is VentureBeat.
This is the reason for the call spanning seven time zones.
Although I have many more goals than simply writing about other people’s technology, the network I have built in recent months is all due to my father, and the Penn State connection.
My dad used to attest that Penn State has the largest alumni network in the United States, and it is also happens to be a top-notch University.
This is why I applaud what Lion Launch Pad and Rob Shedd are trying to accomplish– use this immense valuable resource we have here at Penn State, and bring great minds together to provide a platform for entrepreneurship launches.
In the real world, there are no superheroes–but there are plenty of people who have and will help us along our creative journey.
Hand in hand with these helpers and mentors, only can we achieve greatness.
