Company Updates!
Man, a fella takes a brief break to experience the culmination of the greatest college football season of all time in person and the inbox goes crazy. So we need to do some cramming together in today’s edition. This item: updates on three startups we’ve profiled before, starting with A) Basis State. In just four months of working with Chapel Hill-based edtech EduLync, the Basis State team assumed full management of company operations, achieved profitability, and found an acquirer for EduLync in an unnamed (hey, I asked), out-of-state, leading provider of educational software. Basis State has also introduced a standalone version of its acquisition marketing service for software startups who want to test the waters on a potential sale.
B) Remember Chapel Hill-based RepVue, which helps sales professionals know which companies are the best to work for? Of course you do. Well, RepVue has unveiled its real-time rankings of the top 10 sales organizations to work for in the Triangle. No. 1 (for now) is Cloud Factory, while 15Five is third and Pendo checks in at No. 6.
C) Fresh off its appearance (like RepVue) in GrepBeat’s Most-Read Stories of 2019 list, Raleigh’s WAAM launched its connect-you-with-a-trainer fitness app. WAAM has also landed celebrity trainers Josh Rogers, Hilton Alexander (aka Route King) and Mike Young. Visit WAAM’s site for all the details.
CED Conference
CED has announced the startups that will be presenting as part of its Venture Connect conference from March 17-19 in Raleigh. There will be 72 startups on the tech side (Venture Connect will also feature Life Sciences companies). They include a number of GrepBeat story subjects, such as Allstacks, Courtroom5, Coworks, Green Stream Technologies, Intake, mesur.io, MuukTest, ProAxion, Protopia, Revibe Technologies, StrongKey, The Climate Service and VitalFlo. Check out the CED site for all the details.
Moving In
Today’s newsletter sponsor, Policygenius (see below), isn’t the only company that’s seen the light and planted an office in the Triangle. Here are three more: A) Charlotte-HQ’d dev agency Dualboot Partners has opened a Raleigh office with two names (and faces) familiar to the Triangle tech scene. Former GrepBeat Q&A subject Wade Minter will oversee the tech side as Product Principal, while Tina Cochrane (a longtime exec at HireNetworks) has come aboard as VP of Client Development. A reliable source tells me that Tina will be at tonight’s GrepBeat Happy Hour, so if you need some dev resources, seek her out!
B) hatch IT, which is based in McLean, Va., is opening a Triangle office on Monday out of the Frontier in RTP. The startup provides tech consulting services for early-stage startups and recruitment consulting services for growth-stage companies, and the company tells me it picked the Triangle after what it calls an “in-depth talent analysis” that found that this area is “most likely to experience the fastest growth in early-stage software startups.” The office is opening with one employee (there are 11 currently in Virginia) but will hire 3-5 in the Triangle in 2020.
C) Eagle-eyed GrepBeat reader Ray Liu tipped us off to some job postings he saw on LinkedIn that show that Clever, a growing Bay Area edtech that sprung out of Y Combinator, is opening a new Triangle location in early 2020. That will mean 10+ hires, starting with this one for a manager of customer support.
TechGirlz
The Philadelphia-based nonprofit TechGirlz, which aims to get girls interested in tech careers, announced that five young women from the Triangle will join its Southern Teen Advisory Board. The quintet are Navya Alva and Puneetha Mallarapu, from Cary; Raleigh’s Ameya Rao; and Sarah Ridley and Nara Valera-Simeon from Durham. Congrats!
Colorful Deal
Plaid might not be the most exciting fashion statement, but $5.3B can buy some pretty fancy duds. That’s how much Visa paid for Plaid, the fintech co-founded by Duke grad Zach Perret, in a deal announced this week. Plaid allows consumers to connect their bank account to payment apps like Venmo and PayPal without having to jump through hoops like making and confirming two small deposits. Here’s more from TechWire and TBJ.
Century Mark
Raleigh’s Constellation Business Partners tells GrepBeat it has hit a milestone of 100 development partners on its platform for credit unions. The development partners include GrepBeat story subjects Zogo Finance and WalletFi.
Tuning In
Cord cutters, rejoice. Raleigh-based startup Mohu, which was founded in 2011 and makes indoor digital antennas, has been acquired by St. Louis-based Antennas Direct to create the “number one antenna provider in the country.” Mohu majority owner and CEO Mark Buff, who founded the company by cashing in his 401(k) after being laid off by Alcatel-Lucent, tells TBJ that he plans to “stay on for a bit” before moving on to other projects, and that the company will continue manufacturing antennas in Raleigh.
Tasty Raise
Do you like fake meat? Well, investors sure do. Garner-based Improved Nature has closed on $1M in new equity funding (from a single unnamed investor) and is looking to add a second million within the next 60 days for its line of faux meat products. Here’s more from TechWire and TBJ.
Geniusmove
We know that Policygenius isn’t afraid to buck convention. After all, the leading online insurance marketplace has bravely resisted going down the mid-word-capitalization road taken by basically every other startup that’s ever smashed two words into one. It’s one word with a lowercase “g,” thank you very much. But the born-in-New York Policygenius is also going down a road traveled by seemingly half of the Empire State: it’s moving to the Triangle. In part, anyway.
Policygenius has opened a second HQ in Durham as it continues its rapid growth since launching in 2014. It already has 10-15 employees temporarily parked in the Durham.ID WeWork as it completes the buildout of its permanent office space at the brand-new 555 Mangum St., which is just a long flyball from the Durham Bulls’ stadium. The startup doesn’t intend to waste any time filling its gleaming 48K square feet with busy bodies, planning to hire at least 200 employees in 2020. Those positions will be across all product lines and business functions, but with initial emphasis on sales and customer operations talent. Check out the PolicyGenius—oops, “Policygenius”—career page here.
The Policygenius leadership team will be in town Thursday, Feb. 6 for a meet-and-greet near their new digs. For more info or to RSVP, check out their event page here.
Extra Bit
Only a fortunate few of us get to hear GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy’s words of wisdom on a regular basis. But fret not: now you can hear Joe as a guest on Drew Adams’ podcast, The Price. Here are the Apple and Spotify links, and you can also access it on the The Price’s website.
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