In yet another sign of growth in Philadelphia’s startup community, Philly Tech Meetup has evolved from a few dozen members gathering in a Penn classroom to drawing over hundred people to Quorum in University City in less than a year.
If you are unfamiliar, Philly Tech Meetup borrows its format from New York Tech Meetup: startups demo projects live in front of the local tech community. After a roughly 10-minute demo, audience members are free to ask questions about the startup and offer feedback. After the demos, everyone heads to the bar.
Last night at the Science Center, many attendees stood in the back of the room as Philly Tech Meetup cofounder Rohan Mehta emceed demos from Cliq, Inhabi and Storably. After the jump, we break down each demo complete with video:
Cliq:
A spin on social search with an emphasis on restaurants, Cliq can help you quickly discover what your friends are saying about your local eating establishment. In alpha with 200 users, founder Alex Khorram walked the audience through the social data the site collects to help users make educated choices based on what their friends think.
The company is still adding places and hopes to derive revenue from subscription services and advertisements. Khorram spoke at length at the vast amounts of social data available and said he is hiring engineers.
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Inhabi:
Launched during Philly Tech Meetup, Inhabi is a “dating site” for landlords and renters. See our complete coverage here.
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Storably:
Launching minutes before its demo at Philly Tech Meeup, Storably hopes to connect people with additional storage and parking spacing with those in need of a place to put their stuff. Founded by a collection of Penn, Harvard and Temple alumni, the team is currently located in Venmo’s old offices in Rittenhouse.
After its demo, the Storably staff (including programmer Nick Shiftan who was Skyping in from Seattle) were peppered with questions about the security of the storage process. Founder Apu Gupta cited the success of AirBNB and the site’s $500 insurance guarantee as reasons that Storably’s community will avoid these problems.
“We believe people will act like human beings,” said co-founder Josh Kowitt.
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