NEWARK --Scott Simonelli is the kind of entrepreneur that Dun & Bradstreet CEO Bob Carrigan wants to hang with.

Simonelli, who grew up in Madison and now lives in Connecticut, has been a rock guitarist, elementary school teacher and jingle writer who is now the founding CEO of Veritonic, a company that uses data to help marketers make what traditionally have been highly subjective decisions about what music to use for their ads, apps and other products.

Simonelli -- who still looks more like the indie rocker he was than the 41-year-old CEO and father of four that he has become -- is among the latest crop of tech entrepreneurs taken under the wing of Newark Venture Partners, an equity investment group and tech incubator, whose partners include Audible, Prudential, Rutgers University, the City of Newark and Dun & Bradstreet.

"Sometimes, you need data to justify spending $500,000 on the Rolling Stones," Simonelli said during an event this month introducing NVP's new crop of 11 tech firms to Carrigan, and him to them. "Or you can use data to justify, 'Well, we didn't need to spend that, we're fine using stock audio or a different piece of music.'"

NVP provides the young companies a minimum of $100,000 in cash, mentoring and at least a year of free communal work space, complete with gourmet kitchen, foosball and ping pong tables, and treadmill workstations, on the 7th floor of 1 Washington Park, a building it shares with Rutgers Business School and Audible.

Dun & Bradstreet, the 175-year-old financial data and services firm based in Short Hills, has contributed $5 million to NVP's $38 million investment fund.

In addition to cash, D&B and the other investors also provide executives to serve as mentors to NVP's stable of what now totals 20 startups, comprised of nine companies from NVP's initial incubator class launched last year, plus its latest group of 11 firms, including Veritonic.

Carrigan, who lives in New Jersey, said Dun & Bradstreet is eager to help the city of Newark and its business community flourish for a variety of reasons, not least of which because it's the largest city in the state where the company is headquartered.

He was also confident D&B will recoup its $5 million stake in NVP, which is jointly run by managing partners Tom Wisniewski and Dan Borok, both veteran venture capitalists.

But beyond those reasons, Carrigan said D&B and its employees can learn from the independent and creative young minds of the start-up founders, who are trying to build their companies from scratch in the rapidly evolving digital age.

"Were in the middle of this modernization and transformation of our business," said Carrigan, dressed in the corporate-tech uniform of a sport jacket and no tie. "This is a way for us to expose our employees, who are involved with a whole lot of areas of our business, from technology to data to marketing and sales, to have them get involved with these companies."

"It's part of, again, this cultural transformation. It's an invigorating thing for our employees to have, who are part of a company with a long history," Carrigan added. "To have them mingle with these early stage companies and have them figure out new ways to use the data, and new ways that we can help these companies. And just new ways to kind of share ideas."

NVP was founded by Audible's civic-minded CEO Don Katz to encourage Newark's rebirth as a high-tech hub, a goal shared by the administration of Mayor Ras Baraka.

The firms, selected for their market potential and at least some demonstrated success, will be put through a 3-month training program that includes a series of seminars on technical and business-related subjects. For example, on Tuesday, two dozen people took in a digital marketing class led by an industry professional in a glass-walled classroom space at the NVP office.

Following the formalized instruction period, the entrepreneurs will continue to receive mentoring from executives of D&B as well as Audible, while putting in the hours at their NVP space and elsewhere needed to build their companies.

Like NVP's initial group of 9 startups did in December, the second group of firms will take part in a "demo day" on June 27, when the founders will each make a pitch to potential investors at the Prudential Center arena a few blocks away.

The latest group of startups include Circlelink Health, a healthcare monitoring app that was one of several health-related firms; Pomco, a "peace of mind" company that produces a "one-button personal safety device; SAM, which uses artificial intelligence to boost sales and marketing; and Wearaway, a b2b online rental service for film, television and advertising props.

Along with Veritonic, Claimit, DocDelta, Envested, Gitlinks, Trendalyze and Wellsheet round out the 11 firms. See descriptions of all the companies here.

Some of the firms will be given more money, space and time at NVP to reach their potential, Wisniewski said, adding that others will grow out of NVP and into a new space.

And, depending on market forces and other factors, some will dissolve. Wisniewski said their founders will move on to new ventures or jobs with established firms like Audible, Prudential or D&B, which will benefit from their new hires' start-up experience.

"And that's a good thing," Wisniewski said.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.