Dude Looks Like...
Dude Solutions CMO Catherine Harrell is the subject of this month’s Meet... Q&A series from our own Tricia Lucas. Catherine is the second senior Dude Solutions exec to be featured in Meet... alongside General Counsel Kelly Kopyt Caputo, which is representative of the company’s female-majority executive suite. Cary’s Dude Solutions provides facility and asset management software for schools, government agencies, healthcare and manufacturing companies. Catherine talks about everything from her love of Baryshnikov to Airstream trailers; you should totally read it!
Growing Field
Farming isn’t just for the great outdoors anymore. Increasingly, indoor farms are sprouting up in urban areas, deserts, and anywhere else where arable land is scarce. Durham’s AgEYE Technologies meets the unique needs of indoor farmers, who often grow their crops vertically (i.e. stacked in rows) rather than horizontally and don’t have access to the same labor pool as traditional farms. And let’s just say that AgEYE does a lot more than simply water your plants.
You can spy AgEYE for yourself when it presents on March 17 at Venture Connect. Before that, read our full story here.
Student-Founders
What’s the first thing you think of when someone says “Duke University”? For many around the country, the Duke men’s basketball program is what leaps to mind. We’d also bet that if you looked at Duke’s cash flow statement, the hoops team—and athletics in general—account for a pretty substantial line item in the expenses column. (On the revenue side too, to be fair.)
Well, the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative would like for student founders (student-founders?) to get some of the same focus and resources as schools like Duke devote to student-athletes. That’s why they’ve launched the Student Founders program, which held its first kickoff event on Saturday. You can read our story on the program here.
Safety First
If you’re a member of the human race, you’ve likely heard about the coronavirus. Fortunately it has not yet hit North Carolina—that we know about, anyway—but that doesn’t mean that local tech companies haven’t already been affected. Cary’s Epic Games has canceled its Unreal Fest event and decided not to send a team to the Game Developers Conference. Naturally, upcoming convention-goers and –holders (such as CED) are keeping abreast of the latest news to make sure they have the all-clear. We recommend crossing your fingers—while washing them for 20 seconds with soap and warm water.
Name Blame
HQ Raleigh is being sued by a Texas-based company—RGN-US IP, which has ties to global coworking/shared office giant Regus—over the use of “HQ.” RGN is alleging trademark infringement, claiming that it has used the “HQ” mark since 1977. HQ Raleigh’s Jess Porta told TBJ in an email: “We own the trademark for HQ and are represented by legal counsel to defend our rightful ownership.” Hey, we’re rooting for the hometown team.
Bouncing Back
TBJ ran a nice story late last week about Prescient, the tech company that saw its Durham HQ destroyed in last year’s deadly gas explosion in downtown Durham. Prescient uses “five-dimensional software” to design buildings in an innovative way, which is two more dimensions than I thought could be used for that purpose. Prescient has moved its HQ to Charlotte, where it already had 20 employees, and also houses some employees in Mebane, where it has built a manufacturing outfit.
Looking Bright
VR and AR haven’t yet completely taken over the world like futurists and Hollywood led us to believe—speaking of, where’s my %&*# flying car???—but there’s plenty of real money to be made, with more on the way. Those trendlines surely helped RTP’s ImagineOptix, which makes proprietary optics tech for use in VR and AR visual devices, close on another $5M in new capital on top of the $9M it raised 15 months ago. ImagineOptix, which launched out of NC State, is looking to raise another $4M to further augment its reality.
Emailbag
Here’s some more from the emailbag, a conceit that helps maintain our pledge to never have more than eight numbered items while bringing you ever-more news, because you're welcome:
1) Kate Cooley, who you might recall as the CEO of Wotter and the mom of one of its two "Girlboss" founders from our video feature in December, is joining forces with two other Triangle women with event-marketing expertise (LiLo Good and Britt Creech) to launch a podcast called Showffers. The podcast is in part intended to help generate interest in their in-progress startup exhibitr, a SaaS platform for event-planners in the $40B B2B tradeshow ecosystem that will launch late 2020/early 2021.
2) Gavin Jocius is launching River Wise Ventures, a Durham-based search fund looking to acquire eCommerce businesses in the Southeast, as well as invest in startups such as Durham-based portfolio company Mosi Tea.
3) The City of Raleigh has today opened applications (through April 15) for Impact Partner Grants to provide funding to community stakeholders to enhance or execute new programs and resources targeted to underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Extra Bit
TBJ has unveiled the 18 winners of its 2020 C-Suite Awards for their “contributions to the Triangle community.” Tech company execs who made the list include Diana Allen of ChannelAdvisor; Michelle Engle of Valassis; Cree’s Greg Lowe; and Wes Pollard of Spiffy. Congrats to all the honorees!
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