The Dorm Room Fund is open for business in Philadelphia

Over the past few weeks I have been spending a ton of time with University students in Philadelphia around the creation and launch of the Dorm Room Fund (see Josh’s post on the fund here). Today I am really excited to announce that the Dorm Room Fund Philadelphia is open for business and ready to fund student run start-ups in Philadelphia (if this is you, tell the investment team about your company here). The investment team is fantastic and they have set the bar incredibly high with their first funding commitment to FireFly, a company founded by a group of Upenn students that enables download-free screen sharing for customer service (learn more about Firefly from TheNextWeb or TechCrunch and learn why the team decided to accept funding from the Dorm Room Fund even though they have said no to other sources from PandoDaily).

This team is dedicated to making the most of the short time that they are in school and helping get great ideas out of the dorm room and into the hands of consumers. As the CEO of Firefly, Dan Shipper, says, “dropping out, moving to San Francisco and raising money is one way to start a company, but it’s not the ONLY way.”

I can’t wait to see where they take the Dorm Room Fund in Philly, who the next few portfolio companies will be and I am honored to be along for the ride.

A big thanks to everyone who applied. I am hopeful we will find lots of ways to keep you engaged with the Dorm Room Fund and with start-ups in University City. If you have ideas, leave them in the comments here or better yet, in the comments on the Dorm Room Fund blog post announcing their launch.

and don’t forget, if you want to bring the Dorm Room Fund to your school, scroll to the bottom of this page and let us know