VC Roundup: Joe Biden visits BFTP

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.
DEFINITE READS
Vice President Joe Biden visited the northeast branch of Ben Franklin Technology Partners last week. The Scranton native spoke at BFTP’s new clean tech campus in Bethlehem which received federal funds as part of the stimulus package. Be sure to read the Morning Call’s excellent write up.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME
Dreamit Ventures gets a write up in the New York Times for its contest awarding $1,400 for the best 140-character business pitch.
Leave it to the guys at First Round to get major press from the Volcano in Iceland. Stuck in London because of the massive smoke plume’s effect on airline traffic, First Round partner Chris Fralic held one of the VC firm’s “office hours” sessions. And judging by our Google alerts, everyone and their mom thought it was a great idea. Next time SEPTA is late, TP will hold office hours. Promise.
Radnor-based NewSpring Capital has invested in Exegy. The company processes financial data and delivers it as a ticker that businesspeople can purchase for their desktop. Good thing businesspeople don’t know how to use RSS…
GIVE A GLANCE
Safeguard Scientifics company MediaMath has purchased Adroit Interactive. MediaMath, a digital marketing company, said it was looking to use Adroit’s ad testing technology.
Novitas has invested in optics-maker Nistica, a company with the most generic web page we have ever seen.
Comcast Interactive Capital has taken part in BlackArrow’s Series C round. The company makes advertising platforms for televisions. Hm, wonder why Comcast would be interested in that?
The VC Roundup will deliver Philadelphia private equity news hot and fresh every Tuesday morning.