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Wharton-rooted VerbalizeIt gets 20k downloads after ‘Shark Tank’ appearance [Startup Roundup]

DuckDuckGo breaks 3 million direct searches, Safeguard Scientifics and MentorTech participate in a $15 million Series B for Medivo and VerbalizeIt goes big after Shark Tank, without even taking investment from the "sharks."

Verbalizeit cofounders pitching during Philly Tech Week 2012, then known as Palm Lling
Startup Roundup is sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank's Philadelphia office, which serves the life science, technology and clean tech markets in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Philadelphia team also works closely with the venture capital and private equity firms that invest in these sectors.

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow Startup Roundup’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

WHO’S GETTING FUNDED?

Safeguard Scientifics and MentorTech Ventures participated in a $15 million Series B for New York City’s Medivo, a health monitoring platform, according to a release. Medivo’s CEO Sundeep Bhan is a Penn grad.

Speaking of Safeguard, managing partner Jim Datin was named to the Pennsylvania Bio board, Philly.com reported.

First Round Capital participated in a $18 million Series B for Boston-based online marketplace CustomMade, PandoDaily reported.

WHO’S MAKING MOVES?

Is DuckDuckGo slated to have its best week ever — again? On Monday, it broke 3 million direct searches. With 2.54 million direct searches on Friday, the Paoli-based search engine that promises not to track you closed its best week ever last week, following news of PRISM, Technically Philly reported.

Zonoff, the Malvern-based Internet of Things company, opened up its platform for its partners to make their own connected devices, according to a release. This move mimics the offerings of Malvern smart home firm BuLogics (Zonoff spun out of BuLogics in 2011), which plans to offer DIY kits for people to make their own smart home products.

SnipSnap launched verified coupons, according to the Callowhill couponing app’s blog. That way, you don’t ever have leave a restaurant after it doesn’t accept your coupon (or is that just us?).

SnipSnap CEO Ted Mann also has a story on Fast Company where he explains how to prototype your app with Mechanical Turk.

20,000 people downloaded VerbalizeIt, an New York City-based on-demand translation app from a pair of Wharton grads, after it was on the Shark Tank season finale, the New York Times reported. Daily revenue has more than tripled, according to the report, and the startup didn’t even end up taking any funding from the “sharks.” You’ll remember the service as PalmLing, a Wharton startup that demoed during Philly Tech Week 2012.

Center City digital filing company Neat released an updated mobile app that creates expense reports and more, according to a release.

Companies: BuLogics / MentorTech Ventures / Neat Company / Palm Ling / Palmling / Safeguard Scientifics / SnipSnap / VerbalizeIt / Zonoff
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