Billtrust founder & CEO Flint Lane (Billtrust website)
Though not surprised by it, I missed the note that appeared back in June in PE Hub (registration required), saying that Lawrenceville (NJ)-based Billtrust was on the market. Its specialty is automating and speeding up the B2B payment process, slower to modernize in some areas than consumer payments, which are more easily converted to mass production techniques..
Sources were telling PE Hub that Billtrust expected to fetch $600 t0 $700 million, which sounds realistic. An incoming bid apparently triggered an auction process. Goldman, also an investor, was advising Billtrust. Billtrust, with 400 employees, was founded in 2001.
Goldman Sachs Private Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and Visa were among major investors. Billtrust had raised $104 million in total, according to Crunchbase. Edison Partners, its first institutional investor, has already exited with a more than 10x return on its investment, the venture firm said.
Late last year Visa and Billtrust had launched the Business Payments Network (BPN), which JPMorganChase (which bought Philly healthcare payments site InstaMed in the spring) has just joined.
Flint Lane, founder & CEO, tweeted this today:
Eighteen years ago today I walked down to my basement with just the inkling of an idea and Billtrust was born. So grateful to everybody who has participated in the journey — teammates, partners, investors and most of all my awesome family.
Which may have been simply intended to recognize that anniversary, but to me sounded like perhaps a deal or transition of some kind is imminent and Lane is sunning things up.
State Tax Breaks Rewarded Companies Connected to One Powerful Man. The Governor Just Killed Them — for Now.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed the state’s controversial tax incentive program after a WNYC-ProPublica investigation into its connection to George E. Norcross III, and months of scrutiny.
by Nancy Solomon and Jeff Pillets, WNYC Aug. 23, 5:03 p.m. EDT
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday vetoed legislation that would have extended the state’s controversial tax break law, and he recommended a sweeping overhaul of a program state investigators say benefited powerful insiders at the expense of taxpayers.
“For the past six years, New Jersey has operated under a severely flawed tax incentive program that wasted taxpayer money on handouts to connected companies instead of creating jobs and economic growth,” Murphy said in a prepared statement.
That program expired at the end of June, but the Legislature passed a bill that would have extended it for seven months as the governor and lawmakers negotiated reforms. More than $11 billion in tax credits for 1,000 projects have been approved by the state since 2005, Murphy wrote in his six-page message to legislators.
Get Our Top Investigations
Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Serviceapply.
The veto follows weeks of talks between the governor’s office and legislative leaders, as well as months of public scrutiny, including a WNYC-ProPublica investigation that detailed how South Jersey political boss George E. Norcross III and his associates helped craft — and benefit from — the tax break program.
Of the $1.6 billion in incentives awarded to companies in his hometown, Camden, $1.1 billion flowed to businesses and nonprofits owned by or connected to Norcross, the news organizations found. Norcross has denied any wrongdoing and defended the incentives as a tool to revive the state’s impoverished cities.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Norcross ally, has formed a committee to study reforms and maintains that he is open to fixing flaws in the tax break programs. But he has resisted the administration’s demands that the programs be radically downsized. The Democratic leader has not ruled out a vote to override Murphy’s veto, but such an act would represent an extraordinary challenge to the head of his own party; the Legislature hasn’t overriden a governor in 22 years.
Sweeney’s office did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday afternoon.
Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a Democratic leader from Bergen County, says that she doesn’t expect an override of the veto, but that the Legislature would work with the governor to come up with a compromise. She defended her vote to extend the controversial tax break program.
“We re-upped the program for a very limited length of time, to keep the program operating to keep the things that were in the pipeline, in the pipeline,” Weinberg said.
Murphy called Friday for shrinking the tax break initiative by capping overall awards at $400 million and targeting tax credits for small businesses, while beefing up the state’s ability to monitor hiring and direct awards to underdeveloped areas. He would replace the two expired tax break programs with five smaller programs catering to high-growth industries, mixed-use projects, historic preservation and the redevelopment of contaminated land.
Any new tax credit program would ultimately have to be approved by the Legislature.
Murphy’s veto caps a year of controversy and debate that has riven New Jersey politics.
Meet George Norcross. Nearly two thirds of $1.6 billion in tax incentives in his hometown of Camden, New Jersey, went to his own company, business partners, political allies and clients of his brother.
In a January 2019 audit, the New Jersey comptroller’s office found that state oversight of the tax break programs was poor. The state Economic Development Authority, which approves the tax incentives, was unable to verify that companies were fulfilling promises to create new jobs and make investments in new factories and workspaces, according to the report.
A task force subsequently formed by Murphy found that the 2013 law creating the tax breaks was shaped by insiders to benefit their business interests, particularly insiders allied with Norcross. The task force has referred some findings to the state attorney general’s office, which is conducting a criminal inquiry.
Reports by WNYC and ProPublica revealed new details about the Norcross machine’s role in writing the law, as well as flaws in the EDA’s oversight. The agency awarded a $260 million tax credit to Holtec International, a nuclear technology company, despite major omissions in the firm’s application, the news organizations found.
Norcross serves as an unpaid director on the Holtec board.
After the reports, the state froze Holtec’s tax award and it is now under review by the EDA, along with tax awards to several other firms. These include Norcross’ Camden-based insurance brokerage, Conner Strong & Buckelew, and firms owned by two business partners, which in 2017 were collectively awarded $245 million in tax credits.
Also under scrutiny is the $39.9 million tax break approved in 2014 for Cooper Health System, where Norcross is board chairman.
Investigators with Murphy’s task force say they found evidence that Cooper Health and the Norcross-connected firms misled the state by falsely claiming they were considering moving out of New Jersey. The claim dramatically boosted their tax awards — by $32 million in the case of Cooper Health — investigators found. Norcross and Cooper have strongly denied any wrongdoing in seeking the tax benefits.
Norcross filed suit in state Superior Court to disband Murphy’s task force, which he claims was formed to single him out, but a judge dismissed the case last month, citing studies dating before Murphy’s election that showed deep-seated problems with the tax break program.
Norcross has appealed the decision.
This report was produced with support from the McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism, City University of New York.
ProPublica and WNYC are spending the year investigating the power and influence wielded by party bosses in New Jersey’s political system. If you know something about the state’s controversial tax incentive program, we’d like to hear from you. We’d particularly like to hear from:
Past or present state employees who can tell us about the mechanics of the tax break program
Past or present employees at companies that received tax breaks since 2013 who can tell us about the application process
If you have something to share with us, here’s how to do it:
Nancy Solomon is managing editor for New Jersey Public Radio and WNYC. Jeff Pillets, a 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has written about politics and public corruption in New Jersey for more than 20 years. Email Solomon at nsolomon@wnyc.org and follow her on Twitter at @nancysolomon2. Follow Pillets on Twitter at @jpillets.
Get our investigations delivered to your inbox with the Big Story newsletter.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Meet George Norcross. Nearly two thirds of $1.6 billion in tax incentives in his hometown of Camden, New Jersey, went to his own company, business partners, political allies and clients of his brother.
State officials scrambled to meet the demands of a lawyer at the firm where Philip Norcross, the brother of New Jersey political boss George E. Norcross III, is managing partner.
After WNYC and ProPublica identified a false answer on nuclear company Holtec International’s New Jersey tax break application, state officials have frozen the break pending further investigation.
Accel, named in the article, must be the major VC partner. GoPuff authorized a Series D round in November of last year totaling at least $108.5 million, according to a state filing.
“The latest financing last November valued the company at about $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The share price of its November round was more than 90 times what some of the earliest outside investors paid in 2015.
GoPuff has attracted veterans of Uber and Lyft to run marketing and growth out of a San Francisco satellite office.
A key to goPuff’s strategy is keeping its own inventory in its own local warehouses. The co-founders earn praise as operating managers.
Juul pods are said to be among goPuff’s highest grossing products.
BTW, Juul announced yesterday that it will soon require all retailers to use an updated point-of-sale (POS) system. When Juul products are scanned, the POS will prompt the retailer to scan the customer’s ID. Which may create hurdles in making those systems work remotely.
Also, my impression is that Juul may face further restrictions in the not-so-distant future. goPuff must also navigate a myriad of Alcohol restrictions. And some investors can’t invest in tobacco related ventures.
Josh Kopelman, though not an investor, took time to praise goPuff last November:
Add @gopuff to my "woulda coulda shoulda" list. Congrats to Yakir and Rafael on their impressive traction. https://t.co/A0hc9ssqZP
This twitter thread started in May by Cory Weinberg of The Information appears to confirm two things:
That Philly-based goPuff is a Unicorn, with a valuation in excess of $1 billion
That it has raised over $150mm, which is at least $140 million more than previously reported
Where the additional investment came from is not known, though one investor, 3L Capital, has been identified. But 3L couldn’t have supplied the entire amount goPuff is said to have received. The investment hasn’t shown up in the usual places on the web.
There have been suggestions that goPuff is trying to act in stealth mode, trying to build a national footprint before anyone notices.
Some other comments on the thread are enlightening.
Let me introduce you to goPuff, a very under-the-radar unicorn that has quietly raised more than $150M.
Selling beer and Juul pods to college students appears to be a good business. https://t.co/S5aZwlRGfX
ThoughtSpot Raises $248M at $1.95B Valuation to Transform Enterprises with Search & AI-Driven Analytics
Hundreds of global businesses, including leading Fortune 500 companies from every industry, adopt next-generation analytics software at enterprise scale
As productivity gains from data visualization flat-lines, enterprises move to the next generation of analytics with ThoughtSpot to automatically deliver proactive, relevant insights to business users
ThoughtSpot growth accelerates as company approaches $100M run-rate, driven by 100% software subscriptions and multi-cloud deployments
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — August 28, 2019 — The analytics industry is in the midst of a massive generational shift. The last comparable shift started in 1997, when Tableau was born as a Stanford PhD project by one of its founders. The data visualization technology pioneered by Tableau and Qlik was nothing short of revolutionary. Twenty one years later, in 2019, the productivity gains provided by data visualization has hit a plateau, while the technology itself has been commoditized by the likes of PowerBI. As innovations like cloud, mobile, and IoT make the world more software-driven, every industry is being transformed, and enterprises are demanding more. It’s time analytics software evolved to meet the needs of modern businesses, who can no longer depend on weekly dashboards to compete in a digital world.
To help enterprises compete in this new world, ThoughtSpot today announced it has closed $248M in funding at a valuation of $1.95B in an oversubscribed round, bringing the company’s total funding to $554M. New investor Silver Lake Waterman, Silver Lake’s late-stage growth capital fund, joined existing backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, and Geodesic Capital in this round of funding.
With the new funding, ThoughtSpot will continue to invest in its go-to-market teams in North America, EMEA, and APAC to meet growing demand, expand R&D efforts, including hiring for its engineering and product teams, and invest in customer and thought leadership events, like the company’s annual customer conference Beyond 2019. Passionate builders are encouraged to check out and apply for open positions at the company.
“When I see the work our customers like Walmart, BT, and Daimler are doing with ThoughtSpot to transform their critical functions like supply chain or customer service, I’m incredibly inspired, but I also realize how much unlocked potential remains when it comes to data-driven insights,” said Sudheesh Nair, CEO, ThoughtSpot. “The world is changing fast, and businesses that change faster will thrive. As technology partners to our customers, we have only one job: provide the agility that’s like oxygen to these organizations so they can compete and win.”
“Seven years ago, we started ThoughtSpot to help create a more fact-driven world, whether in the boardroom or on the front lines of enterprises, by making data and insights available instantly to everyone, regardless of their technical skills,” said Ajeet Singh, Executive Chairman & Cofounder, ThoughtSpot. “We’ve been fortunate enough to have some of the most visionary customers supporting our mission since our inception. While today’s announcement is certainly a major milestone, we know we’re only 2% done in achieving our goals on behalf of our customers. We will not rest on our laurels and will continue to bring fundamental innovation to the market, because that is who we are.”
Charting the Future with AI-Driven Analytics
As technology redefines every industry, enterprises know they need to arm decision makers throughout their organizations with smarter insights in order to compete and grow their businesses in the digital era. This has made analytics one of the hottest areas in technology. Despite this investment, many enterprises have failed to digitally transform, shackled by tools predicated on data visualization. These tools have been too complex for anyone but the most sophisticated data professional to use. For even these technical professionals, existing data visualization technology couldn’t handle the massive – and growing – data volumes characterizing our modern world.
ThoughtSpot was built from the ground up to break this bottleneck, allowing enterprises to truly reap the benefits of their cloud, IoT, and big data efforts by turning data into insights at scale. Anyone who can use Google can find insights using a simple search to make data-driven decisions in seconds. The system takes this further by using AI and machine learning to automatically find and deliver insights to users they didn’t even know to look for. All of this happens in seconds, across billions of rows of data, with ThoughtSpot’s in-memory calculation engine. As a result, enterprises achieve the agility they need to delight their customers, identify new revenue opportunities, and drive the bottom line.
“The retail landscape is evolving at a dizzying pace. The only way to keep up is to leverage our data in new, innovative ways to improve our operations, delight customers, and transform our business,” said Pravin Rangachari, VP of Planning, at Haggar Clothing Co. “ThoughtSpot gives us granular levels of insight into our merchandising data to help manage online and store inventory at a speed and scale to match the demand of the modern day retail shopper. I’m excited to see how their Search & AI capabilities will accelerate with the new funding to bring even more value to enterprises like ours.”
A Record Breaking Year
The funding comes on the heels of a year of record growth for ThoughtSpot across all facets of the company, which includes
Growth Among Global Enterprises: More than half of the Fortune 10 and companies like Walmart, Hulu, Daimler, 7Eleven, PetCo, and Rolls Royce have become ThoughtSpot customers. The company also has an average sale price of $250k, contributing to sales growing 195% in the first half of the fiscal year as the company approaches $100M run-rate.
Expanding the Global Footprint: Since it’s Series D funding, ThoughtSpot has opened new offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Dusseldorf, and invested $25M in it’s office in Bangalore, India.
Attracting the Right Talent: in the last year, ThoughtSpot has grown employee count by more than 65% to nearly 500 employees. This includes several new executive hires, such as CEO Sudheesh Nair, Chief Data Strategy Officer Cindi Howson, SVP of Products Raja Mukhopadhyay, SVP of World Wide Sales Brian McCarthy, SVP of Business Operations David Freeman, VP of Public Sector Monica McEwen, VP of People Operations Marta Molina Paul, VP of Channels & Alliances Toni Adams, and VP of EMEA operations Spencer Tuttle
Building the Analytics Ecosystem: ThoughtSpot has announced partnerships with innovative companies like Google Cloud Platform, Snowflake, Dell, DataRobot, Alteryx, and Carahsoft to help customers tackle challenges across the data pipeline.
Recognition as a Market Leader: ThoughtSpot was named the first new leader in six years in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics & BI Platforms, a technology pioneer by the World Economic Forum, one of the 100 most important cloud companies by Forbes, and one of the 50 best cloud companies to work for by Glassdoor and Bessemer Ventures.
About ThoughtSpot
The world’s most innovative enterprises use ThoughtSpot to empower every person in their organization, from C-suite executive to front-line employee, with the ability to quickly uncover data-driven insights. With ThoughtSpot, business people can type a simple Google-like search to instantly analyze billions of rows of data, and leverage artificial intelligence to get trusted, relevant insights pushed to them as answers to thousands of questions they might not have thought to ask. ThoughtSpot is simple enough for any business person to use, yet powerful enough to handle even the largest, most complex enterprise data without sacrificing speed, security, or governance. That’s why customers like Walmart, 7-11, BT, Celebrity Cruises, Daimler, De Beers, Hulu, Miami Children’s Health System, Nationwide Building Society, and Scotiabank have turned to ThoughtSpot to transform their decision-making cultures. By making insights a part of every conversation and every decision, ThoughtSpot is reimagining the role of data in creating a more fact-driven world. For more information, please visit www.thoughtspot.com.
About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 350 companies globally, including Snap, The Honest Company, GrubHub, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, and MuleSoft. The firm currently manages over $9 billion of committed capital and invests in the U.S. and internationally, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India and China. www.lsvp.com
Press Contact Ryan Mattison ThoughtSpot Head of Content & Communications press@thoughtspot.com
A $543 million bet on the California-based startup, after today’s Series E.
It is a combination search engine & business intelligence platform. Which makes sense, since the major BI platforms are spending much time and money recently on seeing that customers have the data they need to feed their analytical engines. The search results ThoughtSpot aims to produce are more in the form of relevant data sets rather than individual query results. AI is definitely a big part of the program
There is a law (mine among others ) that says the more moving parts a venture has, the greater the risk. But I’m not being negative; rather I’m hopeful ThoughtSpot is successful. It would be a major advance to the state-of-the-art.
Start writing or type / to choose a block
And it has a Philadelphia presence, with an 8 person office that appears to include some national & regional sales leadership. My guess is its mostly targeting Pharma and Healthcare in this region. John Tecce, manager of North East Sales, is a veteran Philly area account manager.
Also, Central Jersey resident Cindi Howson, creator of the website BI Scorecard, left her VP role at Gartner to join ThoughtSpot as Chief Data Strategy Officer.
By the way, SAP-related Sapphire Ventures co-led ThoughtSpot’s previous round, a $145 million Round D one year ago. It also participated in this latest round.
Comcast is also a user, according to a new help-wanted spot.
One year ago, ThoughtSpot appointed Sudheesh Nair as its new CEO. Nair joined ThoughtSpot from Nutanix, where he was President.
ThoughtSpot said in today’s release that it was approaching a $100 million annual revenue run rate.
As to why ThoughtSpot has raised so much money, it seems like a considerable amount for a BI startup, though compared to some its not that much an outlier. But Tableau only raised $15 million pre-IPO, and it sold for $15.7 billion. This post by CEO Nair helps explain ThoughtSpot’s mission::
Purpose, Faith, Knowledge, and Courage: Learnings from ThoughtSpot’s Series E Funding https://t.co/EUClwIAg3K
And while most of Sapphire Ventures’ investments aren’t acquired by SAP, its certainly conceivable that SAP might eventually have interest in ThoughtSpot. As one source told me, SAP wants to help customers unlock the value of the huge amount of data they have in their SAP systems (particularly as customers transition to SAP 4/HANA), and it sees ThoughtSpot as a tool to help do that.
Here Nair answers the question, why so much money?
The new $248M round that we just raised was the 6th round of fundraising I’ve been involved in, including an IPO roadshow, between @ThoughtSpot and @Nutanix. I thought I will share a few facts and feelings from the experience:
Patrick Hughes, CluePoints Chief Commercial Officer, is a ClinPhone veteran (CluePoints website)
In the Philly burbs, you can always turn over a stone and find yet another clinical trials tech firm. But most have a unique angle, rather than being merely duplicative.
One such company is CluePoints. which offers a Risk-Based Monitoring and Central Statistical Monitoring solution designed over the last 20 years. CluePoints is growing, and just completed a move from Wayne (where it opened its first US office in 2017) to King of Prussia (1000 Continental Drive, Suite 240) for larger quarters. CluePoints’ base is Belgium.
Risk Based Monitoring (RBM) is a clinical trial-monitoring technique that fulfills regulatory requirements but moves away from 100% source data verification (SDV) of patient data. It employs various tools and statistical measures to determine what is most critical to a trial and what’s not. The idea is to use advanced technology to lessen costs and difficulties associated with trials while maintaining standards.
ICH GCP E6(R2) was adopted in 2017 as an addendum to ICH E6: Good Clinical Practice: Consolidated guideline, adopted in 1996 by the International Conference on Harmonisation. R2 was intended to encourage implementation of improved and more efficient approaches to clinical trial design, conduct, oversight, recording and reporting while continuing to ensure human subject protection and reliability of trial results.
CluePoints, which considers itself the leading provider of RBM technology, said in a press release that it has experienced tremendous growth in the past years, “growing from a team of five people in 2012 to currently just over 60, with plans to accommodate 100+ employees [overall] by close of 2019.” It currently has 11 people in King of Prussia, according to LinkedIn.
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (Ben Franklin), a leading seed stage capital provider, today announced that its Global Opportunity Philadelphia Fund (GO Philly Fund) has made its first investments in two rapidly growing technology enterprises. The blockchain-enabled GO Philly Fund provides capital for seed and early-stage technology companies operating primarily in the Philadelphiaregion.
In keeping with the charter of the new fund, the first commitments from GO Philly Fund are follow-on investments to earlier investments made by Ben Franklin. The GO Philly Fund’s inaugural investments include:
Sidecar helps retailers create powerful performance marketing campaigns to target shoppers on the channels they use most. The company combines deep data, knowledgeable humans, and inspired technology to deliver seamless experiences that turn shoppers into buyers.
GO Philly Fund has committed $1 million to Sidecar as part of the company’s recent $7.5 million C-1 participating preferred round which included investment from Osage Ventures, Harbert Growth Partners and Ascent Ventures. Dating back to 2010, Ben Franklin has invested in Sidecar through four separate venture rounds.
“Sidecar would not be where it is today without the early support of Ben Franklin,” said Andre Golsorkhi, Founder and CEO of Sidecar. “We are thrilled to have new venture support through the GO Philly Fund and from our other investors. This new investment supports our continual technology development and team expansion as more retailers grow their partnerships with Sidecar.”
Clutch is a provider of an integrated customer marketing platform that delivers customer intelligence and personalized engagements to B2C brands, helping them identify, understand and motivate each segment of their customer base.
GO Philly Fund has committed $750,000 to Clutch as part of the company’s $2.5 million senior preferred note in preparation for its larger Series C round that is forthcoming. Primary investors included Empactful, NewSpring, SafeGuard, and company management. Ben Franklin previously invested in Clutch in 2012 which it later converted into a Series B preferred position.
“We’re excited to add GO Philly Fund as an investor in our growing company,” saidNed Moore, Co-Founder and CEO of Clutch. “We are looking forward to utilizing the new capital as we seek to accelerate growth, grow our brand, and expand into new markets.”
“We are gratified to witness the groundswell of interest from GO Philly Fund investors. They are dedicated to supporting growth and innovation in our region and are convinced by what they have seen Ben Franklin produce,” said Scott Nissenbaum, Ben Franklin’s Chief Investment Officer. “We are all are excited to rededicate our commitment to these impressive locally-grown companies. These first two mark an auspicious start to the collection of GO Philly Fund portfolio companies and an important step in our continued efforts to fuel economic transformation in the Philadelphiaarea.”
The GO Philly Fundwas formed in conjunction with EPAM (NYSE:EPAM), a leading global product development and digital platform engineering services company headquartered in the Philadelphia area with more than $1.8 billion in revenue. Some other investors include Provco Group, Fulton Bank, and SRI Capital.
“We are excited to see the first GO Philly Fund investments proactively fueling the growth of innovative companies like Sidecar and Clutch,” said Elaina Shekhter, CMO and Head of Strategy, EPAM. “As the Fund continues to encourage the growth of early-stage startups in the Philadelphia region, we see our partnership with Ben Franklin Technology Partners as a way to connect diverse technology companies in the region to the larger-scale, global innovation economy.”
Ben Franklin Technology Partners remains the most active investor in the region and is committed to maintaining efforts to support the seed and early-stage companies that foster a community of innovation and contribute to economic growth in the Philadelphia region. The GO Philly Fund complements existing Ben Franklin investments utilizing funds raised from institutional and private accredited investors.
For accredited investors and seed and early-stage companies interested in learning more, please visit: gophillyfund.com.
About Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Since its beginning in 1982, Ben Franklin has invested more than $200 million into over 2,000 emerging technology companies in the Philadelphia region, making it the most active seed investor in the Mid-Atlantic region, and ranked top 10 in the United States. An independent 501(c)(3), Ben Franklin has played a role in the creation of many of the region’s leading technology companies and, together with the statewide network of four independent Ben Franklin Partner organizations, has been recognized as significantly increasing the odds of success for the young companies it champions. Ben Franklin nurtures young companies by actively investing capital and providing an ever-growing repertoire of resources for its portfolio companies, their co-investors, and the Philadelphia region’s community of technology-based innovation. Ben Franklin is an initiative of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and is funded in part by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority. For more information on Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia region’s most active early-stage investor for more than 35 years, please visit www.sep.benfranklin.org, and follow us on Twitter @bftp_sep.
On August 5, the NJ Tech Council announced that it had acquired Propelify, the innovation festival that has brought thousands of tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to the Hoboken waterfront. It also announced that Aaron Price, who had founded Propelify, would be the organization’s new CEO.
Price is a well-known figure in the tech ecosystem in New Jersey. A serial entrepreneur, he founded the NJ Tech Meetup in Hoboken as a platform for meeting other entrepreneurs and learning from the successful ones. At last count, the meetup had more than 7,300 members.
In 2016, Price launched Propelify, a multifaceted outdoor event that has been called the “SXSW of the Northeast.” And with it, he energized the regional tech community. Price’s Propelify has inspirational speakers, startups from all over the world, educational panel discussions, speed-dating with investors, tech innovation demonstrations, games, networking opportunities, entertainment and, one year, job interviews on a Ferris wheel.
In a brief interview with NJTechWeekly.com this week, Price noted that there are some guiding principals that are important to him and to the NJ Tech Council board of directors. “Everything we will do will be driven by collaboration, differentiation and a high bar of excellence.” In addition, the NJ Tech Council will have its own unique voice, he said.
Price noted that he was in the process of figuring out what that means when it comes to the details, but said that it basically “means that we will serve the community effectively, provide real value, and add a significant amount of energy and new ideas around everything going forward.”
“Everything we will do will be driven by collaboration, differentiation and a high bar of excellence.”
Aaron Price, CEO of NJ Tech Council
He added that the board recognizes that the NJ Tech Council needs to serve the entire tech ecosystem, and that the Propelify community represents a significant portion of the early-stage and growth-stage tech companies in the state. “That’s one of the reasons that we were all excited about the opportunity,” he stated.
By no means will the Tech Council ignore the companies it historically represents, he added. “I think that we can modify the programming so that the complementary stakeholders can actually have a significant benefit for one another.” He explained that early-stage companies that are looking for access to bigger corporations can have that happen through the Tech Council.
Also, Price noted that New Jersey needs a variety of new funding mechanisms for startups, and that can happen through the Tech Council as well. “A lot of the larger corporates are very hungry for all of that to happen.”
“We tapped into the desire of members of the tech community to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves.”
Aaron Price, CEO of NJ Tech Council
Referring to the outpouring of congratulations and offers of help and partnership he has received since Monday, Price said, “There is a lot going on in the state. I think we tapped into the desire of members of the tech community to be a part of something that is bigger than themselves. I feel an enormous outpouring of positive energy about what the community can do together to raise the bar.”
So how did this all come about? “Over the last six or seven months I was looking for some investment opportunities that turned into acquisition opportunities, and I never imagined that the Tech Council would be part of this conversation,” he said. “By chance and coincidence, it came up, and by the end I thought it made the most sense for Propelify and for my own personal mission around what I can do for New Jersey and the tech community here.”
Speaking about Propelify, which is taking place in Hoboken Oct. 3, Price said that people come to the festival from all over the United States and the world because it has a lot of value. “I think there is an opportunity for us to do more to speak to all parts of the state, to empower people around the state who are in many cases championing their own area, so we can have a united voice,” in New Jersey.
Esther is the Founder and Editor in Chief of NJ Tech Weekly. Esther is a contributor to PhillyEnterpriseTech, and this post is reprinted here with her permission.
