Wash Cycle Laundry, Bluecadet win Chamber Excellence Awards [Startup Roundup]

WHO’S MAKING MOVES?

Wash Cycle Laundry won the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce’s award for Sustainability Services Excellence of the Year, while Bluecadet founder Josh Goldblum won Small Business Person of the Year. PR firm Slice Communications won Professional Services Excellence of the Year. And our own cofounders, Brian James Kirk and Christopher Wink, won Young Entrepreneurs of the Year. Here’s the full list of winners.

New Hope, Pa.-based social network MeetMe got hacked earlier this month, Businessweek reported. Hackers accessed some names, passwords and emails of MeetMe users, and, according to the report, “Company officials rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq stock exchange on Aug. 5 when the attack began.”

Speaking of MeetMe, the City of San Francisco sued the social network earlier this year, saying that the company lets predators stalk teens, according to a release. The lawsuit cited several instances of offenders using MeetMe to find underage victims. The suit is in a “holding pattern” right now, said Gabriel Zitrin, a spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. The DA’s office has been working with MeetMe to resolve the complaints in the suit, Zitrin said.

Artisan Mobile, the Old City mobile optimization firm, launched new product features, including a way for its customers to send targeted messages to mobile app users, according to a release.

Jonathan Kriner, marketing manager at Center City marketing startup Solve Media, left Philadelphia to join the New York City-based Integral Ad Science as a marketing manager, according to his LinkedIn.

First Round Capital now has a Venture for America fellow. Meet Shilpi Kumar, who’s based in First Round’s University City office but will be working with San Francisco-based partners to find companies worth investing in, she told us. Previously based in Las Vegas, Kumar runs a podcast with another Venture for America fellow. Listen to the latest episode with Product Hunt’s Erik Torenberg here.

Speaking of Torenberg, he’s mulling a pit stop in Philadelphia in early September for an event, if we can drum up 200 people. Who’s in? Update: It’s happening on Sept. 4. at CityCoHo. RSVP here.

Mindgrub Technologies, a Baltimore-based development firm, opened an office in Philadelphia in May of 2013, but it doesn’t have anyone working full-time inside of it, said spokeswoman Shervonne Cherry. The company uses the Center City space for meetings with clients. It’s also a “pre-emptive move” as Mindgrub considers opening a Philly-based development office, Cherry said.

Center City social marketing startup PeopleLinx contracted with Old City dev firm Arcweb. Read Arcweb’s case study about the partnership here.

Speaking of PeopleLinx, cofounder Patrick Baynes, who left the company earlier this summer, has founded his next startup and is looking for a technical cofounder and a chief revenue officer, he wrote on the Philly Startup Leaders listserv.

 

WHO’S GETTING FUNDED?

We visited this month’s Keiretsu Forum, a three-year-old local angel group that’s part of a larger national network. Held in the Cira Centre offices of law firm BakerHostetler, five companies pitched (Keiretsu vice president Jack Warnock asked us not to disclose their names, to stay in accordance with SEC rules). All but two startups were based along the East Coast (the others were based in Tel Aviv, Israel and Marysville, Ohio.) The companies ranged from a medical device company to an equity crowdfunding platform. All five companies pitched at the New York Keiretsu Forum earlier this week and will pitch at the chapters in Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., later this week.

Edison Partners announced a few promotions.

LiveLOOK, a New Jersey-based Robin Hood Ventures portfolio company that developed cobrowsing technology, was acquired by Oracle, according to a Robin Hood release. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

WHO’S GETTING BUZZ?

Biomeme, the Old City smartphone diagnostics startup, was featured in Wired.

Cora, the Geek Awards’ Startup of the Year that sends monthly subscription boxes of organic women’s menstruation products, was featured in NewsWorks.

We told you about Penn undergrad startup Life Patch, which developed a wireless thermometer, earlier this week. They were featured in Business Insider, using their rebranded name: Fever Smart.

None of the 80 employees of RJMetrics drive to work, according to a feature on the Bicycle Coalition’s blog, and 85 percent of them live in Philadelphia proper. “We had a thesis that if we could build a world class technology company in Philadelphia then we would have access to a really amazing proprietary source of talent,” CEO Robert Moore to the Bicycle Coalition. “That’s absolutely come true.”

Here’s Wharton MBA and entrepreneur Anjali Bhatia on what it was like to spend the summer working out of 2401 Wharton, Wharton’s summer incubator for MBA-led startups. Bhatia was also interviewed on Shilpi Kumar’s podcast (see above).