Launch Pad
Launch Chapel Hill’s 13th Cohort held its Pitch Night last night, and GrepBeat was there. By “there,” of course, we mean watching on Zoom from a safe social distance. But our account of the seven companies that presented has a “you were there” immediacy. Read it here.
Open Wide
For many dental practices, trying to order supplies from multiple vendors with separate processes and account numbers can be like pulling teeth. (That’s right, we went there.) Durham’s CureMint solves that pain point with a specialized e-commerce platform for the dental industry that makes procurement—the word that inspired CureMint’s name—as easy as ordering on Amazon. Cary’s Cofounders Capital recently led a $1.25M seed round in CureMint. You can read our full story here.
Startup Checkup
Today’s TechWire includes a thoroughly reported story on the state of local startups, especially their cash position during Covid-19. The upshot: while a few startups are notably struggling, especially those in the service or hospitality industries, most are holding up well—for now. The story quotes local boldface names like CEOs/Founders Allison Wood (DaVinci Education), Monica Wood (Myxx), Jes Lipson (Levitate) and Zach Fearnside (Aeva Labs). RIoT’s Tom Snyder also makes a good point: larger startups, especially those that are venture-backed, are more likely to resort to furloughs and layoffs more quickly since they have a higher burn rate and, crucially, investors they need to keep happy. Read the full story here.
TechWire has an accompanying story on the many ways that startups are trying to raise money these days, including via crowdfunding. Hey, whatever it takes.
Planting SEEDs
In hot-off-the-virtual-presses news, NC IDEA announced this morning the six awardees of the 29th cycle of its $50K SEED grants. Since its inception in 2006, the program has awarded nearly $6.8M in non-dilutive grants (i.e. no-strings-attached money) to 154 startups across the state. Three of the six hail from the Triangle: Durham’s Arpio, which we wrote about last month; Durham’s Home Lending Pal, which we featured in October; and Raleigh’s Natrx, which apparently we should write about soon. Click here for the NC IDEA release.
Better Bake Sales
Raleigh’s MemberHub has closed a $3.3M Series A led by South Carolina-based VentureSouth. We wrote about MemberHub—which makes fundraising software for school-related nonprofits like PTAs and booster clubs—in November. We’re guessing that given how school budgets will be clobbered due to the pandemic, such fundraising will soon be more important than ever. The N&O has all the details.
Looking Good
Of the industry verticals getting hit hardest by the pandemic, trade shows and conventions are right near the top. You don’t have to tell that to Cathy and Rudy Hofknecht, the wife-and-husband team behind Durham’s Neu Concepts, which heretofore has focused on building custom-designed booths for trade shows. TechWire has an interesting story (well, two of them) on how Neu Concepts has pivoted into helping design new socially distant office layouts, as well as the even more intriguing route of designing custom backdrops for Zoom calls. Call the Room Rater guy!
Drilling Down
Raleigh-based Vertical IQ has upgraded its “Local Economies” data on more than 300 metro areas to now include more than 3,100 U.S counties. The startup helps bankers, accountants, and advisors of all types arm themselves with data before approaching current or potential clients, especially SMBs. While macro economic trends are obviously important, so are local, micro trends—and the latter are far harder to come by.
Bell Tolls
Steve and Jackie Bell have donated $11M to UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. The gift will support the construction of a new building that will allow K-F to grow its undergraduate program by at least 50 percent. Great, more potential interns for GrepBeat/Colopy Ventures!
Extra Bit
Speaking of Colopy Ventures, our sister company Jurassic Capital has made its second investment, a debt financing in Charlotte-based AddShoppers, which makes marketing automation software for e-commerce companies. AddShoppers Co-Founder and CEO Jon West and his team go away back with the Jurassic partners/Bronto alums Kevin Mosley and (GrepBeat Godfather) Joe Colopy, as AddShoppers was one of the first partners in the Bronto AppCenter.
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