The Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital‘s student-run investment group, announced a $20,000 investment in Pagevamp, a service that turns Facebook pages into websites.
Pagevamp was originally created at PennApps Fall 2012, the Penn student-run hackathon. Its three founders have since graduated from Penn and moved to New York City, where they will run the business, said cofounder Vincent Sanchez-Gomez.
The team previously told Technically Philly that it believed New York was a better place to grow their business since it’s teeming with their target market: small business, clubs and organizations.
A bigger city that has more potential customers has logical limits — it might also follow that there would be greater competition for web resources and higher costs to operate there. Whatever the case, while the Dorm Room Fund is no doubt an interesting pipeline for First Round’s investment strategy, an example like this makes it harder to see it as a city retention boon.
So far, three of the five announced Dorm Room Fund portfolio companies have left Philly post-graduation: luxury handbag retailer Dagne Dover (Brooklyn), interactive video creation platform Whamix (New York City, according to one cofounder’s LinkedIn) and PageVamp. Co-browsing startup Firefly remains in Philly, as cofounder Dan Shipper has one more year left at Penn. Used car sales platform ZenKars has said that the team is deciding where to settle down and that it will depend on funding.
Read more on Tech Crunch. Also check out the Dorm Room Fund’s announcement on its blog.
