Philadelphia Media Network is holding a startup contest

“You know what else is in abundance in the Philly area besides cheesesteaks, soft pretzels, water ice and construction cranes? Start-ups. Lots and lots of them.”
With the above clichéfest as a lede, Philadelphia Media Network sent out an email on Friday announcing the kickoff of the Stellar Startups contest, a search for “the best inventions, ideas, products, solutions and more” limited to Philly, South Jersey and Delaware’s New Castle County.
Apply by July 8
What’s in it for the winner? A feature on Philly.com and in the Philadelphia Inquirer, along with a shindig of some sort in September.
“Finalists will be invited to an awards program in September, where winners in each category will be revealed,” the announcement reads. “Since start-ups consider exposure a valuable avenue to potential funders and consumers, PMN will profile each winner in a future edition of the Inquirer and on Philly.com.”
Um, OK.
This is hardly the first advance the publisher of the Philly papers has made into the startup world. Since 2012, Project Liberty — an incubator initiative started with Knight Foundation backing — has yielded five cohorts of startups, some of which have gone on to acquisitions or major funding rounds.