DreamIt Ventures expands to Austin, to demo at SXSW [VC Roundup]

Welcome to the VC Roundup, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

MUST READS

DreamIt Ventures will be expanding to Austin, the startup accelerator announced yesterday, roughly a year after we reported  on speculation about an Austin move. The program, which will run for three months like those in Philadelphia, New York and Israel, will start mid-December and demo at South by Southwest (where there will hopefully be a kickin’ Philly presence). Managing Partner Kerry Rupp, who has roots in the little music city, will head to Austin to lead the program after the forthcoming fall Philadelphia class. Check out more from TechCrunch here.

First Round Capital had a busy week, re-investing in a number of companies.

It participated in another round for San Francisco-based digital publishing company SAY Media, according to a press release. The $27 million round was led by New Enterprise Associates. The venture capital firm also participated in another round for New York City-based firm 33Across, which AdWeek calls a “social data company.” Pelion Ventures led the $13.1 million round. First Round also participated in a $10 million round for San Francisco-based Mashery, a provider of API management platforms. And finally, First Round also participated in a $105 million round for New York City’s Fab.com, according to VentureBeat. It’s Fab.com’s third round of funding.

After all that news, it should come as no big surprise that the Wall Street Journal reported that First Round Capital was the second most active investor in the second quarter, trailing 500 Startups and tied with New Enterprise Associates.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Princeton-based pharmaceutical development company Agile Therapeutics raised $40 million  in Series C financing, according to a press release. Novitas Capital participated in the round, which was led by Aisling Capital.

Standardized business testing startup HigherNext raised $540,000, according to an SEC filing. We covered the company, which is headquartered at Venturef0rth, last month.

Keystone Edge covers the Energy Commercialization Institute, an organization that funds cleantech startups and is itself funded by Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners Southeastern Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State University.

GIVE A GLANCE

Newsworks looks into how both Pennsylvania and New Jersey are investing in local startups. For more on government dollars going to startups, check out our piece on how Philly’s tech scene is different from those in cities like St. Louis and San Diego.

Poptent, a video production company with offices in Conshohocken and Los Angeles, raised $5.5 million earlier this month, according to a press release.

First Round Capital was interviewed for a book called “Venture Capitalists at Work” that tries to answer the question: What do venture capitalists want?