Angel Investors

When cable TV executive Joseph W. Cece took over as CEO of Digital Access in January, a Bala Cynwyd-based startup that builds broadband networks in medium-sized markets such as Indianapolis, he confronted a situation many entrepreneurs would die for. Just before Cece came aboard, Digital Access won commitments from a bevy of venture capitalists - including two from Silicon Valley - for $450 million. Digital would have the funds needed to grow quickly. But not all local startups are as flush with venture capital as Digital Access.

A Camden County criminal investigator's romance with a mortgage broker has cost her her job and could send her to prison for obtaining a fraudulent loan, officials said. Asha Ritchards, 31, of Sicklerville, appeared yesterday in U.S. District Court in Camden, where she tearfully pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and admitted she lied on loan applications for a house her then-boyfriend used as a rental property. "She fell in love with this guy. He's a smooth-talking, handsome guy," defense attorney Leonard S. Baker said.

Venture capitalists and "angel investors" who fed and were fed by the stock market's 1990s surge say the recent skid in technology-stock values has clouded the premium-priced promise that stampeded corporations, pension funds and rich individuals into investing in unproven companies that hoped to go public at high prices. "A lot of people at these [new] companies have lost tremendous amounts of paper value," said Andrew Martini, head of Bank of America's Radnor private banking office, which concentrates on high-tech executives.

Jim Young , raised in Apple Computer's hometown of Cupertino, Calif., developed the notoriously successful face-and-body comparison-voting site HotOrNot.com back in pre- Facebook days, while he was warming up for his doctoral dissertation at Berkeley. Cheyenne Ehrlich , raised in a meditation center, developed ClickTheButton.com , a PayPal predecessor, while he was an undergraduate at Vassar, and went on to help build firms in Silicon Valley and East Asia, from his home on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

To boost entrepreneurship among young adults in Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., the Prudential Foundation is giving a $2.5 million grant to extend the Prudential Young Entrepreneur Program, which it launched in July. The nine-week program for adults ages 18 to 30 is taught at the Enterprise Center on Market Street in West Philadelphia, where Prudential officials made their announcement yesterday. The money, which also covers course materials and $15,000 business start-up loans for eligible participants, is to be split between the two target cities.

By 22, the Lower Merion native had graduated from MIT and cofounded E Ink Corp., which was instrumental in developing the display technology behind electronic books such as the Kindle. Now, 13 years later, a Philadelphia company eager for its big break in the solar industry is counting on Albert's being no less prodigious. Still without revenue after nearly six years, SRS Energy appointed Albert its new chief executive officer in mid-May after firing Marty Low, the gregarious, high-energy ice-cream-parlor owner who brought the company to life.

EMILY LANDSBURG started and sold her first company, a business taking care of people's boats, when she was just a few years out of college. "Nothing was easy about it," she says. "It wasn't an instant success. " Even after she and her partner made their first hire, Landsburg was still waitressing and working odd jobs to help pay her rent. Then, from the restaurant window one day, she caught a glimpse of their employee working on a client's boat. In an epiphany, she realized that out of thin air she had created a job. "I was just, like, oh my god, this is the coolest thing ever.

Stephen A. Roth, a former University of Pennsylvania biology department chairman, had been contemplating retirement after leaving the company he'd started based on his own research. Then two guys with a new idea knocked on his door in 2002. At first, Roth, 62, could not believe the concept advanced by biochemist Brad Jameson of the Drexel University College of Medicine: that serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter in the body's central nervous system, is essential for white blood cells to multiply.

The nation's biggest venture-capital deals typically take place in Palo Alto, Calif., or Cambridge, Mass. But not this quarter. Look no further than Audubon, Pa., where Globus Medical Inc. attracted the most money from venture capitalists - $110 million - during July, August and September. Globus, which is working on spinal-implant devices for back problems that improve mobility, topped a private-equity investment for a Cambridge energy company that raised $100 million in the third quarter, according to a new investing survey.

ONLY THREE years have passed since Blake Jennelle started his first company here, but the founder of Philly Startup Leaders says that the city's young-entrepreneur community has gone from nonexistent to booming. "I thought I was the only person crazy enough to start a company in Philly," says Jennelle of his decision back in 2007 to launch Anthillz, a tech company that no longer exists. So, Jennelle organized a happy hour for other young entrepreneurs at a Center City bar. That first night, eight people showed up to drink beer and trade ideas.