Curalate cofounders win E&Y Emerging Entrepreneur award [Roundup]

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?

First Round Capital participated in a $8.75 million round for Austin, Tx.-based Civitas Learning, which aims to bring big data to higher education, VentureBeat reported.

WHO’S GETTING BUZZ?

Curalate cofounders Nick Shiftan and Apu Gupta won the Ernst & Young award for emerging entrepreneur of the year. Jim Foster, CEO of Center City digital filing company Neat Company, won technology entrepreneur of the year. Find a full list of winners here.

Paoli’s DuckDuckGo continues to garner national buzz: this time, in Time Magazine. On the other hand, one writer at SearchEngineLand said that, despite the search engine’s growth after PRISM, “it’s not grown anywhere near the amount to reflect any substantial or even mildly notable switching by the searching public.”

And, if you’re following along at home, DuckDuckGo broke 3 million direct searches nearly every day last week.

Don’t miss Center City business analytics firm RJMetrics in the New York Times in a story about bootstrapping versus venture capital funding.

In an editorial, the Philadelphia Inquirer advised: “Give the Nutter administration credit for trying to keep young entrepreneurs in Philadelphia.” The editorial lists the numerous ways Nutter has been supporting the local tech scene: StartupPHL, the Philadelphia Social Enterprise Partnership and more.

WHO’S MAKING MOVES?

Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA added Timothy Scheve to its board. Scheve is the President and CEO of Janney Montgomery Scott.

Robin Hood Ventures announced a new board. Craig Schroeder, owner of Blue Skies Properties, will be president of the board for the University City Science Center-based angel investment group.

Rittenhouse Square coworking spot Benjamin’s Desk cofounder Michael Maher got accepted into TechStars’ Patriot BootCamp, a three-day program focused on mentoring veterans who want to start a startup. Maher’s company is a real estate startup called Real Comps.

Chalfont-based email marketing firm AWeber hired Erik Harbison as Chief Marketing Officer, according to a release. Harbison previously worked at True Action, a a digital agency division of GSI Commerce/eBay. The company now has 102 employees.

In other AWeber staffing news, spokeswoman Liz Cies is leaving for Dallas because her husband got a job there. Wish her well with us!

AWeber also launched a new control panel for its customers. Learn more here.

 Jon Gosier of data science startup Metalayer participated in British Airways’ “hackathon at 3,000 feet.” On an eleven-hour flight from San Francisco to London, participants worked on solutions to “the idea that talented individuals and opportunities for them to take advantage of are not distributed in accordance with one another,” Wired reported.

Solve Media‘s TYPE-IN product (what we commonly think of as Captchas) was used more than 1 billion times, the Center City company announced. It distributes across more than 6,000 publishers, including Ticketmaster, Bauer and Meredith Corporation.

The company also plans to open a London office to accomodate demand, according to the release. Aside from its Philadelphia headquarters, Solve Media has offices in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. About half of its more than 50 employees are based in Philly.

King of Prussia clinical payment startup Greenphire announced a partnership with Oracle Health Services, according to a release.

Artisan Mobile raised $5.5 million in a Series A led by New York City’s FirstMark Capital. The mobile management startup recently moving into a new Old City office. Check out photos here.

Northern Liberties’ Perceptual Networks launched its first app: a video dating app called At First Sight. The team partnered with the team from The Bachelor on the app.