Phillypreneurs

DreamIt Venture alums and local Philadelphia tech company, Vuzit, has secured $100k in funding from Innovation Philadelphia’s Creative Economy Investment Fund. Only the third project to achieve funding from the pre-seed/early stage fund Vuzit finds itself in the company of last year’s winners, the Brown Partners and its former startup program DreamIt Ventures. This past summer I was able to sit down wit the Vuzit team and get an insight into where Vuzit came from and where it was going (circa August 2008)

Congrats to Brent, Chris and the whole Vuzit team!

In case you were interested, here is a copy of the official Innovation Philadelphia announcement about Vuzit funding:

On January 22, 2009, Innovation Philadelphia announced the third recipient of its Creative Economy Investment Fund (CEIF) awards. CEIF provides pre-seed and early-stage investments to for-profit creative economy businesses based in the Philadelphia Region.

Vuzit (pronounced “views-it”), an online document platform that utilizes web services and AJAX technology to create a best of breed web platform for distributing and displaying documents, received $100,000 from the CEIF.

Developed by Brent Matzelle and Chris Cera, Vuzit allows content publishers to embed documents in their web pages, similar to how YouTube distributes video, by maintaining consistent branding and site navigation. Vuzit provides publishers with tools to display documents alongside other web content and systems.

Cera and Matzelle won the Emerging Business Award for Most Innovative Product or Service from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania at the organization’s Emerging Business Awards reception in June 2008, and in addition received an investment from the organization.

“Secure document viewing is our number one priority,” said Brent Matzelle, co-founder of Vuzit. “Vuzit can effectively display documents through both an online and server-based platform, which sets us apart from our competitors.”

Vuzit participated in DreamIt Ventures, a three-month business boot camp for start-up companies in the Philadelphia area, which was funded by Innovation Philadelphia through the CEIF in May 2008. To learn more about Vuzit, visit http://vuzit.com/.

“Supporting entrepreneurism is essential to grow the economy in Philadelphia and the region. The CEIF was created to help grow for-profit, technology driven creative industries in the Philadelphia Region,” said Kelly Lee, Executive Vice President of Innovation Philadelphia.

Creative industry sectors identified by Innovation Philadelphia include: architecture, engineering and planning; communications and marketing; digital media and programming; fashion design; graphic and visual arts and multimedia design; information technology; interior and industrial design; music, film and video production; photography; product and merchandising design; and software development.

The award recipient was chosen by Innovation Philadelphia’s Board of Directors Investment Committee. To qualify for an investment award, companies must: be a for-profit creative industry business; facilitate or enhance the growth of the Philadelphia Region’s Creative Economy; be headquartered or have important operations and jobs in the Greater Philadelphia Region; be a privately held company; generate new jobs and increase tax revenue; add value to Innovation Philadelphia’s investment portfolio; and have a strong management team and business plan where success is achievable.

For more information about the CEIF and to apply online, visit www.innovationphiladelphia.com

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Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and start-up junky that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia businesses and organizations including Victory Brewing Company, Dibruno Bros, Ocean City Tourism, Chickie's and Pete's Sports Bar and The Kyle Korver Foundation. Dave is currently spending most of his time consulting for the Welch For PA congressional campaign in Southeastern PA.