Silicon Valley is the tech capital of the US, but the competition for second place is fierce, and Philadelphia is fighting for that crown.The City of Brotherly Love has a young, growing tech sector that’s looking for foreign investors, but it is also fertile ground for start-ups to grow. Last year, tech recruiting company Cyber- Coders ranked the city third in technology job growth in the US at 64 percent, just behind Silicon Valley.As such, plenty of Israeli companies have taken opportunities in Philadelphia, hoping to break into the American market.The Greater Philadelphia Region – southeast Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and northern Delaware – has long been known for its presence in life sciences, largely because of the heavy concentration of universities and medical schools in the area. In fact, Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of Israel’s biggest companies, has its North American headquarters in North Wales, Pennsylvania.This spring, Select Greater Philadelphia, an economic development marketing NGO, brought journalists from around the world to explore the region’s hi-tech entrepreneurship and innovation.Nearly every business accelerator or seed incubator – programs meant to help entrepreneurial companies develop – in the region had some sort of Israel connection or was open to helping Israeli start-ups.One start-up accelerator, DreamIt, has launched 102 companies in a resourceintensive program that provides entrepreneurs with mentors, legal and accounting services and opportunities to pitch angel investors and venture capitalists.Although based in Philadelphia, DreamIt has a program specifically for Israelis operating out of Tel Aviv. That program offers entrepreneurs who reside in Israel accelerator time both there and in New York, allowing them to develop a product based on immersion in their target market.DreamIt selected five teams this year, and these are in the middle of the three-month New York segment, which will continue until August.Another accelerator program, Enterprise Management Consulting – a project of Temple University’s Fox School of Business – allows companies to benefit from their MBA students’ smarts while the students learn skills that will help them in the workforce.One of EMC’s clients was PickN’Tell, an Israel-based startup that developed a smartphone app to share video and photos of clothing a customer tries on in a store and get feedback from friends. Shoppers can also get discounts from retailers partnered with Pick- N’Tell.Starting in August 2011, EMC helped PickN’Tell develop a four-year growth strategy to capitalize on the opportunities the app offers for the apparel sector, such as increased store traffic and purchases as well as access to consumer behavior data.Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s Science Center has been recognized as one of only 23 business incubators skilled in helping international companies enter the US market.The Science Center – the oldest and largest urban research park in the US, bordering on the University of Philadelphia and Drexel University campuses – won the National Business Incubation Association’s Soft Landings International Incubator designation in 2012. The center’s Global Soft Landing program is meant to help international companies gain a foothold in regional markets, and provides laboratories, offices and business support programs.The veteran incubator in the area is Ben Franklin Technology Partners, currently celebrating its 30th anniversary.Named after Philadelphia’s most famous entrepreneur, the organization invests in technological enterprises that seek to grow in the Philadelphia region.Ben Franklin has worked with Rumble News, a mobile publishing platform with an Israeli parent company that developed The Jerusalem Post’s application for Android phones.Centrak, another Ben Franklin client company, was founded by Israeli-American entrepreneurs and tracks patients and objects for the healthcare industry.Ami Miron, a member of Ben Franklin’s board of directors, founded MoreCom with help from the incubator.MoreCom, which developed technology integrating television and Internet content, has been acquired for $560 million.
Horse drawn carriage in Philadelphia 521(photo credit: Dafna Tal)