DreamIt Ventures is raising a $30M fund to invest in its portfolio companies

DreamIt Ventures is raising a $30 million fund to further support its portfolio companies.

The five-year-old early-stage startup accelerator has raised $10 million so far, said managing partner Karen Griffith Gryga, who is raising the fund. The raise will go toward follow-on funding for the nearly 130 companies that have graduated from DreamIt’s programs in Philadelphia, New York City and Austin. (DreamIt’s latest program, DreamIt Health Baltimore, will launch in January 2014.)

The fund is, in part, an effort to keep DreamIt companies in Philadelphia, DreamIt Ventures cofounder David Bookspan told Technically Philly in the fall. Nearly two-thirds of the 66 companies that have graduated from DreamIt Ventures Philadelphia left the city, according to a Technically Philly analysis. That number does not count DreamIt Health Philadelphia, with a retention rate that has been much higher. DreamIt Ventures wants to make it easier for startups to decide to stay by giving them access to early-stage capital, Bookspan said.

“We demonstrated that [these startups] will come to Philadelphia to launch their companies,” Bookspan said in the fall. “What we need to do now is to make Philadelphia a place they want to stay.”

While the fund is for all DreamIt companies, not just those from DreamIt’s Philadelphia headquarters, Philadelphia is the city that sees the most DreamIt action: it’s currently the only city that hosts the traditional accelerator, as well as the health program. DreamIt is planning three programs for Philadelphia in 2014 and 2015, including its flagship accelerator program and another cycle of DreamIt Health, Gryga said.

We reported on early rumblings of this fund last year.