Startups

Traffic.com cofounder raises $1.2M for digital marketing startup [Startup Roundup]

Plus: Five ways to grow the Philadelphia tech scene, according to DreamIt Ventures' Karen Griffith Gryga.

The Traffic.com headquarters in Wayne in 2008. (Photo by Flickr user @philiphubs, used under a Creative Commons license)

startup roundup

WHO’S GETTING FUNDED?

What are some of the founders of Traffic.com up to? (That’s the Wayne-based company that went public in 2006 and the following year got acquired by Navteq for $179 million. Nokia acquired Navteq shortly after that. In 2011, Nokia shut down its Navteq office in Malvern.) One of them, Mike Burns, is running a digital marketing company called Sole Solution Corp., according to an SEC filing, where he’s listed as an executive. The company, which is listed with a Malvern address, raised $1.2 million, according to the filing. This appears to be the website for the company but no staffers are named on it. Check out this advertising spread for the company.
Fellow Traffic.com founder Chris Rothey is named as a director, which presumably means he’s an investor but we haven’t confirmed that.
Burns, a managing partner at Alara Capital, was once described as “the most successful Philadelphia entrepreneur no one has ever heard of” (not to mention “as having an altar-boy face and an assassin’s heart”) in a Philadelphia Magazine story that raised some questions.
We reached out to Burns on LinkedIn and are waiting to hear back from him about the venture. The company is described as one that is gives “sole proprietor businesses a single platform to manage all aspects of digital marketing,” by this Israel-based consultant who’s working with the company.
 

WHO’S MAKING MOVES?

MMPartners, the real estate development firm co-run by wearable tech entrepreneur David Waxman, announced plans to invest $60 million Brewerytown, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. What’s the latest with Waxman’s company VITABand? “We are waiting for our patent to be awarded and will then decide how to proceed in the wearables space,” he emailed us.
Marissa Hu, a Wharton MBA who was part of First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund and used to run subscription service Co-Ed Supply, is now the head of Business Development and Strategy at Los Angeles-based DogVacay, according to her LinkedIn.
 

MEET THIS REMOTE PHILLY DEV

craig baumer

Craig Baumer. (Courtesy photo)


We met Craig Baumer at last month’s Philly New Tech New Meetup. He’s an Android developer who works remotely for Pasadena, Calif.-based QLess, which makes software to manage lines (queues, get it?). The Villanova grad got the job through a recruiter and works from home right now, not currently from any coworking space, he told us. Check out his Android weather app WeatherShout on Github.
(Editor’s note: We often meet technologists who work remotely and wanted to find a way to highlight that. Are you one of them? Tweet or email us.)
 

WHO’S GETTING BUZZ?

One of Invisible Sentinel’s staffers, Olamide Sanuth, was featured in a New York Times’ “Vocations” column. Sanuth is a lab technician and maufacturing supervisor at the University City Science Center-based food diagnostics company.
Read this Philadelphia Business Journal guest post by DreamIt Ventures partner Karen Griffith Gryga on five ways to grow the Philadelphia tech scene.
Content marketing startup Griot Digital was featured in the Daily News. We spoke to CEO Nadia James last month. She has plans to build a content marketing software-as-a-service platform next.
Check out year-in-review posts from local devs Ben Garvey of RJMetrics and Pam Selle of Comcast.
Facebook reigns supreme when it comes to content consumption, at least among college students, according to a survey done by Penn media startup Vyrtex.
 

JUST FOR FUN

From Technical.ly Philly contributor and Instamour dating app founder Jason Sherman:
jason sherman

Companies: Co-Ed Supply / VITABand

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