{"id":134150,"date":"2025-08-10T10:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134150\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T10:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:51:10","slug":"ben-franklin-technology-partners-leaving-philadelphias-navy-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134150\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Franklin Technology Partners leaving Philadelphia\u2019s Navy Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from you! Ask us a question or send us a story idea you think we should cover.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

For years, tech founders visiting Ben Franklin Technology Partners\u2019 Philadelphia offices faced a puzzle: How exactly do you get to the Navy Yard without a car? CEO Scott Nissenbaum would map out a multileg public transit trek \u2014 or suggest a ride down from Center City by car, winding through nearly 8 miles of Philly traffic to reach the city\u2019s southern tip.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can take a train to Center City. You can then take a subway down to the stadiums and then you can take a bus there to the Navy Yard,\u201d Scott Nissenbaum, CEO of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, told WHYY News.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll lose a lot of people on that much of a commute.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just how it\u2019s been for the past two decades, mostly under the tenure of former CEO RoseAnn Rosenthal before she stepped down in 2020<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

Accessibility is one reason why Ben Franklin Technology Partners, an early-stage tech startup investment group, is relocating to a Center City office tower at the intersection of 16th and Market streets in the coming months.\n<\/p>\n

The organization will be moving into the PNC Bank Building, a 39-story-tall high rise just west of City Hall. The move is expected to happen in late December 2025, with roughly 30 employees scheduled to relocate their offices.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s already bearing a fruitful relationship among investors, especially for the technology industry investment group\u2019s proposed innovation center. For years, leadership attempted to entice companies to invest in such a center, but the office was not centrally located enough.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already had people in the innovation economy say \u2018We want to join you there.\u2019 Nothing is committed, but we\u2019re starting to get real traction,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

The old office space was an entire 33,000-square-foot building that was a renovated U.S. Marines barracks, complete with a shooting range and some other unique features. But it wasn\u2019t always a match for the purpose of the organization, which is to connect and engage high-tech startups.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no 100-person classroom building or a big banquet room. Our board room barely fits 20 people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt made it less conducive to meeting and convening, which is a big part of stoking the fire of an ecosystem in a region. The new building has all of that. It\u2019s got great meeting space, easy transportation, an 80-person classroom. It\u2019s even got a bar and lounge that\u2019s part of the building access and a huge board room.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Plans also include a co-working space where multiple companies could work side-by-side.\n<\/p>\n

And because the startup organization was its own landlord when it sold the property at the Navy Yard to a school for about $6 million<\/a>, it\u2019s been able to take any profits and reinvest the money into the startups that it works with as a public-private partnership.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do seed and early stage investments in startup companies and then give them the support and services and introductions to help them grow,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Nissenbaum said that even small investments pay off in the long run, such as Ghost Robotics, a startup valued at $400 million when it was sold to a South Korean business.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":134151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[81100,5229,1448,2830,1311,12771,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-134150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-navy-yard","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-planphilly","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115004092213494951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}