Real Food Works gets $200k in first StartupPHL investment

The City of Philadelphia will take part in investing $200,000 in healthy meal startup Real Food Works as the first investment from its $6 million StartupPHL Seed Fund, the city announced today at a press conference with Mayor Michael Nutter and First Round Capital‘s Josh Kopelman, among others tech scene big wigs. The announcement comes seven months after the the fund launched, though city officials said that the decision was made this summer.

The fund is managed by First Round Capital, which invested $3 million in the fund to match the $3 million contributed by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, the city’s economic development agency. It’s part of the Nutter administration’s push to support early-stage technology businesses staying and growing in Philadelphia.

Founded by Lucinda Duncalfe, who knows Kopelman from their days at Infonautics and TurnTide, Real Food Works moved from Conshohocken to the outskirts of Chinatown this summer in part because of the Startup PHL’s residency requirement, Duncalfe told us. Real Food Works plans to use the money for customer acquisition, she said.

Real Food Works has also received $175,000 from the state-run Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners. The startup has a staff of ten.