The Download
A little while back, we discussed the launch of the new Triangle-based angel group xElle Ventures, which is comprised of women angels investing in women entrepreneurs. In the latest edition of The Download, our Brooks Malone sits down with Robbie Hardy, the longtime tech exec who is xElle’s Managing Partner. We believe she is the first Download subject whose pockets are filled with metaphysical concepts rather than physical objects. Come on, you know you want to read it.
Striped Shirts
On Thursday we mentioned that we’re working on a story on Raleigh’s Silbo, a startup that connects sports officials to amateur sports leagues. Today, we deliver. CEO Brandon Szulik and Silbo recently landed a $1.1M funding round led by Durham’s IDEA Fund Partners, and Szulik’s new book Whistleblower is available today on Amazon. Our story reveals the startup’s origins and what it hopes to accomplish—besides, of course, making money for its founders and investors. Read it here.
Amplifying
While WRAL TechWire beat us to the punch with its Silbo story last week, sometimes it writes about startups that we’ve already featured in our virtual pages. Do we mention that as a “gotcha” gloat about beating the supposed competition? Please, we’d never be so churlish, not out loud anyway. Instead, we believe that the more outlets telling the stories of the Triangle’s early stage startups, the better. Plus: less work for me. Win-win!
Yesterday, TechWire featured Plasma Games, a Raleigh-based edtech startup that makes educational video games to help teach students about science. (We profiled them in June.) Today, our TechWire friends wrote about Inirv, a “smart stove” startup led by Duke grad Akshita Iyer that is bringing IoT into the kitchen. We’ve mentioned Iyer and Inirv a few times, most recently when she won top honors at the TiE-RIoT Women’s PitchFest on Sept. 18.
Half A Unicorn
The $510M cash acquisition of Charlotte-based PrecisionLender by Austin’s Q2 Holdings has gone official. The deal was first announced by Q2 on Oct. 1, though I didn’t mention it then because PrecisionLender is, well, based in Charlotte. (Also I was overstuffed with content that day, and running late, and the sun was in my eyes...) But it has significant Triangle ties, including 97 Triangle-based employees plus the fact that CEO Carl Ryden is a grad of Durham’s North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. You might recall that Carl has made a multi-million-dollar gift to NCSSM to establish a program to study AI. Here’s more from TechWire and TBJ on the PrecisionLender deal.
TBJ also gives a six-month (almost) update on the $329M acquisition of Cary-based IT solutions provider Samanage by Texas-based SolarWinds. SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson tells TBJ that the company intends to increase its headcount in the Triangle—currently at 250—first by moving the Samanage staff into SolarWinds’ main Morrisville office and then potentially by adding another floor. It’s another reminder that just because a company is purchased doesn’t mean it’s going to shrink, never mind disappear entirely, and we’ll keep tabs on PrecisionLender to see the impact there as well.
Skipping Out
Startup lore is replete with tales of young entrepreneurs who dropped out of college to run their company, from the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to local examples including NCSSM’s Jud Bowman. Add NC State dropout Nate Schmidt to the list. WRAL.com tells how Nate generated $1.5M in revenue in his first year running an online store that essentially flipped items he himself bought online, marked up, and advertised on Facebook. (Sorry—FACEBOOK.) So he ditched his classes for good and bought himself a BMW. Sounds like good work if you can find it—or, in Nate’s case, create it from scratch.
Carolina Challenge
If you’re looking to find the next college student with a million-dollar (billion-dollar?) idea, then get yourself to Thursday’s Carolina Challenge Pitch Party at UNC. Over 100 student teams will be pitching their startup ideas. You can vote on the startups you like best while interacting with the Tar Heels’ best and brightest. RSVP here to be a judge/audience member, and the GrepBeat team and I hope to see you there!
A To Zen
Being a college student can be quite stressful, especially if your parents keep asking why you didn't win the Carolina Challenge or make $1.5M on your side hustle. That’s why former Duke counselors Holly Rogers and Libby Webb developed the Center for Koru Mindfulness to help teach Koru, a process they developed to teach mindfulness and meditation to college students and other young people. Now the pair have become unlikely tech entrepreneurs with the recent launch of the Koru Mindfulness app.
Collateral Damage
While we’ve made some sport in tweaking WeWork’s corporate leaders—and especially ex-CEO Adam Neumann—for their believing-their-own-PR arrogance and some truly bonkers decisions, it’s important to remember that lots of innocent and hard-working folks will be negatively affected if the company’s recent setbacks turn into a full-bore implosion. Indeed, even its recent cutting-down-to-much-smaller-size has already led to at least one surprising reversal close to home. Durham’s Union Member House wrote to its members on Sunday that it would be forced to close immediately because the “public collapse of WeWork’s business” led to financial issues for one of its own “major committed investors,” which led said investor to unexpectedly withdraw their funding. Bummer; it was a cool space.
And while Halloween is over, if you really want to scare a top executive at a big commercial real estate company, show up at their door wearing a WeWork T-shirt and ring the bell. Suffice it to say there are a lot of interested observers hoping that Softbank’s bailout of WeWork, well, works.
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