Cleaning Up
Alyssa Cherry launched Durham’s Fillaree for two reasons: to make safer, non-toxic soaps for both our bodies and homes, and to reduce the plastic waste generated by chucking out all the empty soap bottles. That’s why Fillaree not only produces its own cleaning products, but refills said products in recyclable containers either through the mail or at physical refill stations. Fillaree was recently a finalist for one of NC IDEA’s SEED grants. You can read our full story on Alyssa and Fillaree here.
Post-Play Pay
When Zion Williamson left Duke after attending school for just one year, not too many worried about his ability to make a good and fulfilling living, what with his nine-figure contracts to play basketball and simply get dressed (in Nike gear). But the vast, vast majority of college athletes aren’t going to play professional sports, and that’s where Durham’s NextPlay comes in. Founder/CEO Kyle Mumma’s startup helps shape the after-college careers of student-athletes. BTW if you think the Mumma name sounds familiar, you’re right; Kyle’s dad is Mitch Mumma of Intersouth Ventures fame.
You can read our full story on Kyle and NextPlay here.
On A Cloud
Durham’s CloudFactory has landed a hefty $65M “growth equity” investment led by San Francisco-based FTV Capital to accelerate its march toward a goal of putting one million people to work through its platform. Most of those people are (or will be) from around the globe, especially in Nepal and Kenya, though CloudFactory’s HQ is in Durham’s American Underground.
CEO Mark Sears says he intends to more than double the company’s Triangle headcount from 40 currently to more than 100 over the next three years; that’s up from 12 in 2017. CloudFactory’s primary focus is helping develop and brush up high-quality data that can be used to aid AI and machine learning. While terms were not disclosed, Sears told TBJ that FTV is a “minority” investor, so obviously it didn’t buy a controlling interest.
There’s plenty more you can read on the CloudFactory deal: two pieces from TechWire here and here, the TBJ story, and a more personal account from a CloudFactory director, Zack Mansfield.
Stomping Grounds
For the UNC-Chapel Hill grads that founded the healthcare IT startup Well Dot, it seems Franklin Street continued to have quite a hold on them. That’s one reason that Well Dot has picked Chapel Hill over Boston as the home of its new $3.1M HQ. The $3.9M in state incentives over a dozen years probably didn’t hurt either; the state felt that the promised 400 new jobs over five years was worth it.
Well Dot helps its clients’ employees improve their health via an interactive app. It currently has offices in Chapel Hill, Newton, Mass., Minneapolis and New York City, but soon its primary mailing address will be 419 W Franklin St. Here’s more from TechWire and TBJ.
Dreaming Bigger
Durham’s Code The Dream (which we wrote about in March) is now going national. The non-profit coding school that provides free training to groups traditionally under-represented in tech fields including immigrants, people of color and women has launched its first national cohort of remote classes. More than 200 students from across the country applied for just 30 slots. Code The Dream also recently won a $40K grant as part of the GSK Impact Awards for improving health outcomes—because having a good job certainly improves your health.
Helping Hand
Another group that could really use a helping hand in the professional world are ex-cons. To that end, RTP’s RTI International has announced a partnership with the NC Department of Public Safety to test the Pokket app, which connects the formerly incarcerated with service agencies to help them re-enter society and reduce recidivism.
This Just In!
HireNetworks presented its second annual Elevate Awards for top sales and software developers in the Triangle last Thursday. There were three individual categories at varying professional levels: Rising Star, Impact and Leadership. And the winners were: 1) Rising Star—Sales: Josiah Evans, Lenovo; Developer: Kevin Hofmaenner, Infinia ML; 2) Impact—Sales: Mike McDonel, Infinia ML; Developer: Michael Resnick, Diveplane; 3) Leadership—Sales: Ron Nelson, Adzerk; Developer: Sebastian Bologescu, IBM. In addition, the Teamwork Awards went to Citrix (Sales) and PrecisionLender (Developers). Congrats to all the winners! P.S. If HireNetworks CEO Craig Stone had actually invited me to the awards ceremony I might also have mentioned that he used to play professional tennis.
Though to be fair, Craig did alert me to something else from last week that I didn't know about: that Raleigh-based AI startup Diveplane took first place in the “Technology Enablement” category of the international UBS Future of Finance Challenge. Congrats to CEO Michael Capps and his team.
Getting Political
Twitter has already banned political ads (albeit with some sizable loopholes) and Facebook is still grappling with the issue. The perhaps unlikely duo of a UNC professor (Daniel Kreiss) and a Duke counterpart (Matt Perault, who was formerly a Facebook exec) have some advice on how to fix social media’s political ad problem without banning them. They shared their suggestions in a New York Times op-ed, because apparently they’re too good for GrepBeat. Kidding! It’s smart stuff.
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