PennApps projects make Inc.’s Coolest College Startups list [Startup 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 along with a weekly email newsletter by clicking here and selecting the Startup Roundup button or follow Startup Roundup’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

WHO’S GETTING BUZZ?

Inc. named the country’s 12 “Coolest College Startups,” which includes PayTango, a fingerprint payment system that won “Best non-Penn team” at PennApps Fall 2012, and Firefly, the screensharing service from three Penn students that was also developed at an earlier PennApps. Firefly took investment from First Round Capital‘s Dorm Room Fund, we reported last December.

The awards keep comin’ for couponing app SnipSnap. It won About.com’s Reader’s Choice Award for Best iOS Shopping app and also was chosen as one of Gizmodo’s Android Apps of the Week.

Monetate‘s engineering team launched a podcast. Its first episode focuses on PyCon 2013 and the differences between East and West Coast startup culture. Check it out here.

Kwelia made it to the top three startups at RealTech SF’s Startup Alley, according to a tweet. The real estate data startup also got a shout on Apto blog, in a post about real estate commercial software. Meet the Kwelia team at its HQ, coworking spot Benjamin’s Desk, this Monday at the space’s regular “Meet the Founders” event.

Social network MeetMe announced the launch of advertising in their mobile app, according to a release.

Temple alumnus Joseph Williams cofounded Tap Lab, a mobile game company based in Boston. The company has nine employees. Check out Tap Lab’s most recent game, Tiny Tycoons, here.

Autism Expressed, a local edtech startup that aims to teach digital literacy to special education students, is being used by nearly 20 organizations and has a waiting list of 200 parents and organizations, we reported this week.

WHO’S GETTING FUNDED?

Asset-Map, a financial planning platform based out of Bala Cywnyd, raised $500,000, according to an SEC filing.

ElectNext closed a $1.3 million round, we reported yesterday. The politics startup also launched a new product: digital “political baseball cards” and has changed its business model since the fall. Read more about it here.

Green Power Technologies, the King of Prussia-based company that develops technology to charge electric cars, raised an additional $250,000, after an initial $700,000 round last February, according to an SEC filing.

Ben Franklin Technology Partners invested $315,700 in four companies in Northeastern Pennsylvania, including some in the Lehigh Valley, according to Lehigh Valley Business.

Check out First Round Capital‘s Chris Fralic‘s Forbes piece on “the art of the email introduction.”

AND NOW, SOME PARTING WORDS…

“In fifteen years, will VCs make as much money as they do now? They probably shouldn’t.” – Josh Kopelman to Pando Daily about how software will change the VC industry, as quoted by a Quartz article on “how the Internet is making us poor.”