How-to-guide startup Squareknot launches [Startup Roundup]

WHO’S MAKING MOVES?

Squareknot, the Center City crowdsourced site for posting how-to guides and one of the recipients of the city’s initial StartUp PHL angel investments, launched today. Sign up on the site to get an invite.

State-backed investment fund and economic development group Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners of the Southeastern PA has a shiny new website.

Gabriel Mandujano, CEO of sustainable laundry service Wash Cycle Laundry, spoke on a Chamber of Commerce panel on workforce development. More than half of its 48 employees could be classified as from “vulnerable” populations, Mandujano said at a recent University City Science Center event. That means that they could be formerly incarcerated, getting off welfare or in recovery from substance abuse.

 

WHO’S GETTING FUNDED?

Osage University Partners participated in a $10.5 million Series A for Menlo Security, a Menlo Park-based cybersecurity startup, according to PEHub.

Where does the Dorm Room Fund put its “carry”? Carry is the money from a return that doesn’t go back into the fund. With First Round Capital’s student investment firm, 80 percent of the return will go back into the fund and the rest goes to student groups at the various Dorm Room Fund schools. It’s their way of sharing their success with the community, the Dorm Room Fund said. In Philly, it’ll go to the Wharton Founders Club, according to this blog post. (That’s the hopeful future tense here because no Dorm Room Fund startups have exited yet.)

 

WHO’S GETTING A NEW MURAL?

Check out the new mural in RJMetrics’ Center City office, by RJMetrics designer Zach Kozac and Indy Hall-based artist Sean Martorana. The mural has a bunch of geeky company inside jokes hidden inside of it, said CEO Robert Moore (OK, we may have added the word “geeky” there). It was a surprise orchestrated by realtor Dan Gummel, who placed them at the office. Find our profile of Gummel here.

Martorana is also working on a mural for Arcweb, the Old City software consulting firm that got its start working out of Indy Hall.

 

WHO’S GETTING BUZZ?

Leadnomics’ Zach Robbins gives a shout to the city Commerce Department in this Huffington Post piece on tip for young entrepreneurs to find cool, affordable office space.

“In Philadelphia, where Leadnomics is based, Rebecca Lopez Kriss in the city’s Department of Commerce works with entrepreneurs to navigate tax credits — including those related to real estate — which can affect your bottom line,” Robbins is quoted as saying. Leadnomics is based at the Cira Centre, which is a tax-incentivized Keystone Innovation Zone.

Penn founders offered lessons at TEDxPenn and Technical.ly contributor David Ongchoco covered the event for the Huffington Post. The recap features Prayas Analytics’ Yash Kothari, Rajat Bhageria of this PennApps Google Glass hack and Adina Luo and Molly Liu of Black Box Denim.

A former employee is suing ZocDoc, the New York City doctors’ appointment scheduling tool founded by Wharton grad Cyrus Massoumi, Business Insider reported. The employee alleges that ZocDoc is a “frat house,” “where men casually discuss their female co-workers’ body parts, women sleep with upper-management, and there is a rodent infestation.”

Clutch CEO Andy O’Dell has a guest post in Wired on the “mobile wallet tipping point.”

“What’s slowing down adoption,” O’Dell wrote, “is the lack of ubiquity in deploying the technology, the lack of understanding and education on both sides of the point-of-sale as to how and why to use that technology, and the time until we get a generation of shoppers (i.e. those now entering high school) that are actually looking to make transactions using mobility versus consumers that are being convinced to try it.”