A friend recently asked me about the Philly tech scene as he knew someone moving here and looking to get involved. If there’s a time to get involved, it’s definitely now. Startups have the full support of the city (Mayor Nutter has been extremely proactive), funding sources, and the local universities. As Philly’s tech scene continues to grow and mature, I figured it’d be helpful to compile a brief guide to the current state.

Coworking Spaces

  • WeWork Philadelphia: WeWork is coming to Philadelphia! Amenities include weekly events, printing, lounges, conference rooms, and more.
  • Benjamin’s Desk: A diverse coworking community for mobile professionals, entrepreneurs & startups. A world-class experiential event venue for meet-ups, workshops & celebrations. A media platform showcasing innovators, disruptors & instigators.
  • Indy Hall: Indy Hall’s community is the intersection of designers, developers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, small business owners, telecommuters, marketers, videographers, game developers, and more.
  • NextFab: A collaborative workspace with digital and traditional fabrication tools, classes, events, and consulting services.
  • Hive76: A Hackerspace, Makerspace, Collaborative Workshop, and DIY Space located in the Bok Building in South Philadelphia. We are a member run group of artists, engineers, makers, and inventors with a collective workshop space. Hive is 100% owned and operated by our members, and provides resources to make awesome things and find great friends to tinker with.
  • Innovation Center @ 3401: A place to hone your ideas, sharpen your skills and grow your company. With flexible workspace, shared amenities and a collaborative spirit, ic@3401 provides a unique, energizing and supportive environment for your startup in the heart of Philadelphia’s Innovation Neighborhood.
  • Quorum: Uniting the region’s entrepreneurship and innovation communities through a central gathering space on the Science Center campus and related programs that enable idea generators to meet, share and learn.
  • Venturef0rth: It’s more than just a desk. It’s connection, community, collaboration. Surrounded by beautiful hardwood floors, exposed brick, and industrial steel walls. Our breakrooms provide the perfect space for a brainstorming session, while our lounging area gives you the R&R you require.
  • Pipeline Philly: All member options include 24/7 access, free high-speed internet (wired and Wi-Fi), high-design furniture and ergonomic chairs, organic coffee and specialty teas, receptionist services, business center, conference rooms and much more. There are a range of membership options from private suites to virtual offices.
  • Industrious Philadelphia: Use our common areas, phone room, mother’s room, and ample lounge areas. La Colombe coffee, Metropolitan pastries, fresh fruit, and local beer served daily.
  • DM + D Philly: The Department of Making + Doing (DM+D) is a collaboration between four dynamic Philadelphia-based organizations which blend expertise in design, fabrication, electronics, and art to encourage learning through doing. Our hands-on civic innovation workshop provides the space, tools, + knowledge to empower youth, adults and community organizations to make and do great things throughout the area.
  • MakeOffices: Location, Value and Serendipity. MakeOffices empowers entrepreneurs and innovators with spaces and services to grow their businesses. Rent private offices, open desks, virtual offices, or meeting space. Book a tour in DC, Philly, or Chicago.

Funding

  • First Round Capital: We are laser-focused on helping seed stage companies become the next big thing. By connecting entrepreneurs with the tech, resources and community they need on Day 1, we aim to make a lasting impact.
  • DreamIt Ventures: We invest in early stage entrepreneurs at all levels to create breakthrough technology companies. We provide them with resources, advisors, investors, strategic partners and customers looking for innovative solutions.
  • Ben Franklin Technology Partners: For more than 31 years, BFTP has provided both early-stage, technology-based firms and established manufacturers with funding, business and technical expertise, and access to a network of innovative, expert resources.
  • MentorTech Ventures: A privately owned and operated, seed- and early-stage venture capital fund that invests in companies from the University of Pennsylvania ecosystem. MentorTech Ventures is wholly independent of and not affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Startup PHL: The Startup PHL Funds are an effort by the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups. The two funds include the StartUp PHL Angel Fund and the StartUp PHL Seed Fund.
  • Comcast Ventures: At Comcast Ventures, our goal is to turn startups into profitable businesses. We have deep resources, a passion for building businesses and a track record of spotting and scaling innovations since 1999.
  • Rittenhouse Ventures: Investing in small ($1 to $3 million) venture rounds of companies across the Technology-Enabled Services spectrum.
  • Robin Hood Ventures: We don’t just provide the capital to help get your startup on its feet, but also the guidance to achieve sustained growth. Find out if your company is a match for RHV.
  • SeventySix Capital: Since 1999, Wayne Kimmel and his partners have backed passionate, smart and nice entrepreneurs of startup game-changing businesses.
  • Bunker Labs PHL: An innovation incubator for military veteran-led startups.

Events

  • Founder Factory: An annual conference run by Philly Startup Leaders that aims to unleash the potential of Philadelphia entrepreneurs! We bring together our community of founders, mentors, angels, VC’s, students, government groups, and community partners for a collaborative and engaging day of learning, teaching and community building!
  • PennApps: Hosted at the nation’s first university, PennApps is the first student-run college hackathon. Come join us to learn something new, build something novel and start something from scratch.
  • Startup Grind: Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting 215,000 founders in over 185 cities. We nurture startup ecosystems in 70 countries through events, media, and partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs. The cornerstone of our global community are monthly events featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share lessons learned on the road to building great companies.
  • Rise Conference: A conference discussing how communities are being changed by civic innovation.
  • OpenAccessPHL: A network of passionate, engaged and active Philadelphia citizens.
  • Meetup: Leverage Meetup to find the latest tech events in Philly. The more active ones include the Philly New Technology Meetup, Philly.rb, Philly DevOps, and Software as Craft Philadelphia.
  • Philly Codefest: A 36-hour software and hardware hackathon with the goal of developing innovative solutions to help solve real world challenges. Open to all college students and professionals, Codefest gives everyone the opportunity to grow and learn — no matter your background or skill level.
  • Philly ETE: Entering its 11th year, the Emerging Technologies Conference has brought the leaders of the open source community to Philadelphia to teach about their projects, their work and how these technologies are changing software development. During this time, ETE has become one of the largest gatherings of developers in the mid-Atlantic.

Organizations

  • Philly Startup Leaders: We connect Philly startups and entrepreneurs to what they need most: each other.
  • Startup PHL: Click on the ‘Build Your Startup in PHL’ tab to get listings of the best resources and events.
  • Penn Center for Innovation: Penn’s one-stop-shop for commercialization and entrepreneurship.
  • TechGirlz: A 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to reducing — and, we hope, ultimately eliminating — the gender gap in technology occupations. We hold workshops and an annual entrepreneurial summer camp aimed at giving middle-school girls hands-on experience with different kinds of technology and enable them to interact with women who have carved out successful careers in technology fields.
  • Start.Stay.Grow: a series of ongoing events that connect local students with businesses and entrepreneurs in Philly. This program will help bring students into the fold of Philly’s entrepreneurial and technology communities, helping them create valuable relationships, incubate business ideas and grow a regional footprint.
  • weWorkInPhilly: weWorkInPhilly is a community edited guide to the People, Companies, Groups, Projects, Products, and Resources that make up the creative, technology, and business community in Philadelphia. It was launched by Alex Hillman and Linus Graybill on July 6th, 2011.
  • Philly DevSlack: Powered by Slack, PhillyDev is a group of chat rooms and is a great way to connect on tech in Philly.
  • Girl Develop It - Philly: A nonprofit organization that provides affordable programs for adult women interested in learning web and software development in a judgment-free environment.
  • Code for Philly: Code for Philly is volunteering 2.0. We create opportunities for citizens to modernize Philadelphia through the power of the web. Founded under Code for America’s inaugural Brigade Program in 2012, Code for Philly currently hosts a weekly Meetup and participates in a number of hackathons and web-based City projects.

News

Universities

  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Drexel University
  • Temple University

Rising Stars

  • Curalate: The leading visual commerce platform, enabling brands to unlock the power of pictures. They just raised a huge Series C round of $27.5M.
  • Zonoff: Making the brain for the Smart Home. They raised a $31.8M Series B round just over a year ago.
  • Bestimators: Shopping for home improvements is broken. We fix it.
  • RJMetrics: Hosted Business Intelligence Platform. They have raised over $20M to date.
  • Zoomer: Outsourced delivery for high-volume restaurants. Backed by First Round Capital and YCombinator.
  • Monetate: We make it easy to create and deploy super-relevant, multi-channel experiences for unlimited segments.
  • Relay Network: Connects you and your customers on your own space for secure messaging.
  • Cloudmine: Provides a mobile foundation - accelerating delivery, and empowering you to focus on creating world-class apps.
  • LeadiD: Witnesses the facts about every lead event, and enables you to measure consumer intent, improve acquisition, and ensure compliance.
  • Guru: Your team’s collective knowledge, everywhere you need it.
  • Intronet: Find the connections, information, and expertise you need from people you know and trust.
  • Biomeme: A smartphone-based DNA detection platform. No lab necessary.
  • WebLinc: WebLinc is the commerce platform for the fastest growing retailers.
  • Picwell: Simply put, we help people pick the ideal health plan for themselves and their families. With Picwell, the entire experience of selecting a health plan is now easier, faster, better and simpler.

People

Jobs

  • AngelList
  • Community Job List: Data dump of companies hiring around Philadelphia. This repo is contributed to by the local developer community.