Most active seed stage investor in PA attracting capital to grow up companies in PA
Last Updated : Apr 03 2024
Most active seed stage investor in PA attracting capital to grow up companies in PA
Ben Franklin invests in early-stage ventures, building strength in the region's innovation ecosytem across our IT and health care investing. The most active seed-stage investor in the region, Ben Franklin raised the GO Philly Fund several years ago to invest growth capital in strong companies from across its portfolio and is now raising GO PA II Fund to invest in strong companies from across the statewide Ben Franklin network's portfolios. Investing in growth provides the returns to invest back in the young ventures of tomorrow.
First supported with funds from the Commonwealth of PA's Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, Ben Franklin Tech Partners of Southeastern PA has far more demand for its investment capital -- and its varied support resources -- than those funds can keep up with.
With key partners, Ben Franklin has developed a variety of investment vehicles to support the appetite for seed and early-stage capital for innovators in the Philadelphia region. Single LP funds, donative funds, align with the seed and early stage investing. Ben Franklin's for-profit GO Philly Fund provided a vehicle for a wide variety of investors to invest in the all-stars from the Ben portfolio. EPAM, banks, family offices, foundations and individuals invested in that first $25MM fund closed in 2019.
With the GO Philly Fund fully allocated, Ben Franklin is raising a second fund - GO PA Fund II. This GO PA fund will draw pipeline from the portfolios of the four organizations across the Ben Franklin statewide network. GO PA will invest growth capital, alongside other institutional investors.
More capital across a broader continuum -- from pre-seed to growth capital -- will continue to feed the needs of young ventures in our region and will support the health of the nonprofit. Financial sustainability provides essential alignment with the 40-year mission interests of Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
Investor users can see, where peer investors allow, when a diligence process is underway or completed. When this is the case, users may contact the organization who leads the diligence process directly, or specifically request access to the diligence process underway in the event that those leading may be keen to include prospective coinvestors or collaborators. This ‘request’ functionality is visible only to investors.
Third parties or other user types may be invited directly to a diligence process by a lead investor by clicking on the “Invite” button on the Diligence tab. Once they accept, these users will have access to the diligence process including a shared Q&A area, a document repository, and a diligence-specific chat area.
Closing diligence means that an appraisal process led by a prospective investor of an organization seeking debt, grant or equity has been terminated. This may or may not mean that a diligence has effectively been completed; an investor may close said process at any time without further notification of next steps. This effectively closes the Diligence ‘table’ that has been opened and managed by a lead prospective investor. This also closes the process for any other investors or invitees to the ‘diligence table’, regardless of where they have been in the process.
In order to customize templates, a Master Administrator can go to the Diligence menu item on the left hand menu of the dashboard, and select ‘templates’. From there, one can either select an existing template from the dropdown under “Select template” or create a new one by clicking on the green “Create” button. All sub-questions in any template may be edited or deleted at any time.
One does not have to use system templates if they are not helpful, applicable, or practical for user purposes. Simply upload whatever documents you’d like to ‘hold’ on the system and use the messaging tab to communicate with those at the virtual diligence table.
Anyone who is invited into the diligence deal room for prospective co-investment alongside your own would be able to see the substance and structure of the templates you have constructed and applied to the diligence Q&A process on the Q&A tab. If you have not applied one of your templates, then others at the deal table will not be able to see it.
It is also worth noting that other team members that you have specified as part of your organization’s team will also be able to see the diligence templates that you have customized, if any.
The platform is designed to be as flexible as possible in terms of process. As soon as an investor initiates diligence by clicking on the “Start diligence” button, it is possible from that point onwards at any moment to signal an investment commitment of any kind by clicking on the “Make investment” button at the top right of the Diligence tab. Investments can take the following forms: equity, debt, flexible, grant, equity/debt, equity/grant, convertible or blended - and the investor will be prompted to enter an indicative amount. It’s important to note that this is for signalling purposes only, and is a non-binding commitment.
Any figure entered here will be signaled as committed on the deal profile, and those inside the diligence deal room with the investor will see that he/she has signaled such a commitment; at the same time, a notification will be sent to the prospective recipient organization being reviewed. All binding legal commitments and money transfers happen offline and on the back of completion of proper documentation, for which the platform takes no responsibility. Investors contacts connected to you will not see that you have made this commitment.
Once Diligence has been initiated by an investor, one can click on the Diligence tab under Opportunity and immediately expand the virtual ‘deal table’ by clicking on “Invite organization”. One can search for different types of organization or by name, and will be required to consent to specific ‘terms of service’ related to sharing knowledge about an opportunity.
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