Ben Franklin Tech Partners funds 11 Phila-area firms

Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the taxpayer-financed state loan-and-grant program for early-stage tech companies, is giving $2 million to 11 Philadelphia-area companies:

1- $400,000 to Marc DeJohn and Jesse vanWestrienen's  "advanced DNA diagnostics" smartphone app developer Biomeme Inc., Philadelphia (previously backed by DreamIt Health and developed at NextFab Studio in South Philly);
2- $100,000 (after $200,000 in early BFTP dolalrs) to CloudMine, Brendan McCorkle's Philadelphia-based health-data-focused mobile-app-architecture developer, previosuly backed by the Knight Foundation's Project Liberty incubator at the Inquirer and $1.5 milion from Robin Hood Ventures, Mid-Atlantic Angel Group, MentorTech Ventures;  
3- $100,000 to gatherDocs LLC, Alex King's Philadelphia mobile-friendly online hiring system developer;
4- $250,000 (after a previous $500,000) to Gentis Inc., David W. Anderson's Delaware County-based spinal biomaterials treatment developer, also backed by Pappas Ventures (N.Car.), Easton Capital, Ivy Capital Partners and Matignon Technologies;
5- $50,000 (atop an earlier $50,000) to Bernardo Cordovez's OptoFluidics, University City-based developer of the NanoTweezer "nanophotonic" particle analysis tool; also funded by the taxpayer-backed BioAdvance, National Science Foundation, US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA);
6- $200,000 to Rajant Corp. (atop $200,000 in previous BFTP funding), Robert J. Schena's Chester County-based developer of the Kinetic Mesh military and first-response durable wireless network system, previously funded by Battelle Ventures, Innovation Valley Partners, among others;
7- $150,000 (after $200,000 prevoius) to SnipSnapp App LLC, Tedd Mann's Philadelphia consumer-coupon organizing firm, whose clients include Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys R Us and Aeropostale; previously backed by DreamIt Ventures, Project Liberty, MentorTech Ventures, and others;
8- $200,000 to United Preference, Mark Hall's Philadelphia health data analytics firm;
9- $50,000 to VUID, LLC, Kevin M. Brophy's Montgomery County firm that's developing a patented two-factor login verification system using smartphone social media apps through the Spotlight network; previously backed by Project Liberty;
10- $450,000 to X-Nav Technologies LLC, Edward Marandarola's Montgomery County firm that's developing the X-Guide "surgical navigation system";
11- $125,000 to Zuppler Online Food Order, Shiva Srinivasan's Montgomery County-based restaurant ordering portal.