Last week, I went to two events that got me thinking: How can the new and old members of the Philly tech community work together to make the scene stronger?

On Tuesday, I went to the first-ever Founder's Alley, a new conference for local entrepreneurs to meet and discuss ways the Philly ecosystem could grow. Then, I went to the Mid-Atlantic Capital Conference, a well-known event that brought together established founders. 

Seeing two different POVs on the ecosystem has me looking for ways they can collaborate. Any thoughts? Hit reply to let me know. 

Plus, there was no shortage of news last week. The University of Pennsylvania's email system was hacked and Lula Commerce announced an $8 million raise.  

— Sarah Huffman, lead reporter in Philadelphia

P.S. Nominations are open for the annual Technical.ly awards! Check out this year's revamped categories, like Emerging Entrepreneur and Thought Leader of the Year, and fill out the nomination form by Nov. 9. 

Hackers breach Penn's email system

The University of Pennsylvania's contact list was hit with an inflammatory email on Friday afternoon, accusing the school of poor security and threatening to leak data.

The note, which was sent to students, faculty and alumni, appeared to be from the Penn Graduate School of Education. The university's response did not address how the breach occurred or how it would protect against future hacks. 

“This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE," a Penn spokesperson told Technical.ly. Continue reading... 

 Lula Commerce raises $8M Series A

Online business platform Lula Commerce announced last week that it raised $8 million, despite the challenging funding environment. The funding will support the company as it builds more offerings and expands its team, cofounder Adit Gupta told Technical.ly. 

The company previously raised $1 million for its pre-seed round and a $5.5 million seed round in 2022. This time around, investors wanted more details about the company earlier in the process and wanted to hear about how it's using AI, Gupta said. 

“It looks like funds have become more disciplined and are again rooting their decision-making to business fundamentals,” he said. Continue reading... 

💵 Funding check-in

 Relevant SEC filings from the past week

• Popology, $1.65M [Media]
• 2ClickFit, $27k [Software]
• BACH App, $5M [Software]
• Moberg Analytics, $600k [Biotech]

📰 News Incubator: What else to know

Stories from our newsroom and around the web  

• A series of small pivots snowballed this VC into her dream job investing in startups [Technical.ly]
  
  
• Inside EDGE 2.0's first STEM pitch day: Meet the Delaware startups competing for $750k [Technical.ly]
  
  
• Comcast is one of 37 'patriot donors' paying for Trump's $300 million White House ballroom [The Inquirer 🔒] 
  
  
• Interdigital acquires AI startup Deep Render [Press release] 
  
  
• Penn GSE receives $1M from Google to expand AI in education initiative [The Daily Pennsylvanian]
  
  
• The PA Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill addressing AI-generated child sexual abuse material [Press release]

On the Calendar

Want to see your event here? Reply and let me know