Ben Franklin may have funds cut [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.
Because of Thanksgiving it was a slow week for VC. The stories:
The Morning Call writes about Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ struggle to obtain funding from the state. From the story: “Pennsylvania lawmakers have slashed the economic development organization’s funding by about a third, to $6.7 million in 2011. The looming expiration of a key grant portends an even deeper cut next year.”
As we mentioned yesterday, PACT kicks of its IMPACT Conference today at the Convention Center.
Local investor Ira Lubert has been named to the search committee formed to find the next head coach of Penn State football. The program is looking for a new head coach after a former coordinator was accused of sexually assaulting children.
First Round Capital and Google Ventures have teamed up once again to invest $1 million in Pocket Change, a platform for helping app developers monetize games.
The Daily Mail has an entertaining profile of Sean O’Sullivan, an investor and multimillionaire several times over whose many exploits including spending time as a starving artist in Philadelphia.
In one of the tech world’s worst kept secrets, it looks like Facebook will be filing for an IPO in Spring of next year.