Venture Capital: BFTP wants to give you money, a new fund in Bala Cynwyd?

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.
Programming note: We skipped last week due to some technical troubles.
Update: looks like Franklin Park isn’t a straight VC fund.
DEFINITE READS
Ben Franklin Technology Partners is looking to award cash to clean energy companies that employ less than 500 people. The money comes from the federal government and companies must match the funds, which can be as high as $50,000. A notice of intent to apply must be filed by April 7th.
(see update, above) According to SEC filings, Bala Cynwyd-based Franklin Park Venture Fund has raised $50 million. We couldn’t find evidence of preexisting activity from these guys, so drop a comment a if you know anything.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME
PBJ’s Peter Key has a wonderful roundup of tech startups who think now is a great time to start a technology company in the city, including two that didn’t make it into print.
BFTP portfolio company Y-Carbon has received nearly $150,000 million in federal stimulus money. The company develops nanotechnology for clean energy. Which satisfies the buzzword requirement of stimulus money.
GIVE A GLANCE
The Energy Collective has a review of the Mid-Atlantic Cleantech Investment Forum. Philly-based BlackGold Biofuels was among the presenters.
Safeguard Scientifics-backed Advantedge Healthcare, a company that offers billing technology to doctors, has acquired AHP Billing Services Inc. AHP offers billing services to medical specialists.
Wayne-based Novitas Capital joined in a $6.5 million Series C round for optical network provider Nistica. The company provides the optics for high-bandwidth applications. We totally could have used them last week when the site was down.