During Tuesday’s information session on the city’s StartupPHL matching seed stage investment initiative, Sam Rhoads made one thing very clear: the city does not want the tech startups that get funded by the proposed $6 million city-backed fund to move to the suburbs — or anywhere, for that matter — once they receive investment.
“We want the next company that’s born here to mature here,” said Rhoads, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation‘s (PIDC) Senior Vice President of Finance. (On the other hand, the venture capital firm that handles the fund does not have to be within city limits.)
Find the RFP here.
StartupPHL is an effort to combat the epidemic of startups leaving the city, Rhoads said to more than a dozen representatives mostly from local venture capital firms, including DreamIt Ventures, Artists & Instigators, MentorTechVentures and First Round Capital.
PIDC, which will contribute up to $3 million to the StartupPHL fund, aims to have chosen the firm that’s handling the fund by early 2013, Rhoads said.
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