Copy
Happy Tuesday!

Hi, I’m Pete GrepBeat! Please consider supporting our family by checking out the sponsorship opportunities available for Q2. Hey, the little GrepBeats need to eat, too.

3-for-3

Whoever coined the saying “once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a trend” was probably: 1) not talking about building successful startups; 2) not much fun at parties. It’s very hard to launch even one startup and build it to a fruitful exit and/or substantial long-term future. That’s why a successful serial entrepreneur like Jud Bowman is always worth celebrating, especially given that he launched his first startup (Motricity) while still a high school senior at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham.
 
Bowman’s third and latest company is Sift Media, a mobile adtech that likely knows more about you than you do about it. You can help change that by reading our story by Rebecca Ayers.

Exits Open Doors

While we wouldn’t typically get too excited about the sale of a D.C.-based startup, it’s a different story for the customer relationship management (CRM) B2B software firm Contactually. That’s because Durham-based Bull City Venture Partners is one of the company’s investors and will thus benefit from the all-cash deal from New York real estate firm Compass that reportedly is in the “mid-eight figures” (read: the neighborhood of $50M). Every successful score by a Triangle-based VC, even when the company isn’t based here, means that its odds of successfully raising an even larger fund increases, which means more potential capital for Triangle startups. Plus, there’s the added benefit of a nice return from the current fund to BCVP’s own investors, a number of whom are also local angel investors.
 
So congrats to BCVP’s Jason Caplain and David Jones—and don’t be shy about spreading that money around! (And yes, we’re very good at spending other people’s money.)

Triangle, Unite!

Hey, if we can’t beat Austin, maybe we should march behind enemy lines and try to swipe business from right under their nose. Fresh off yet another study (this time of the “hottest job market” in the country according to the Wall Street Journal) in which the Raleigh metro area scored well (No. 6) but Austin did even better (No. 1), a team from Raleigh will be repping the area at the South by Southwest conference that kicks off tomorrow in Austin and runs through Sunday, March 17.
 
That’s great, sincerely. But here’s our quibble: why can’t we collectively figure out a way to better brand and sell the Triangle as a whole, rather than it be a team exclusively from Raleigh and Wake County (or in other cases, just Durham/Durham Country, etc.)? Silicon Valley isn’t a place on a map or run by a single municipal government. Even distinct big cities like San Francisco and Oakland have a joint branding as the “Bay Area.” There is no other part of the country that is already well-known as “the Triangle.” So let’s run with it!
 
And we also shouldn’t be afraid to (heaven forbid!) embrace “Raleigh-Durham,” or at least not recoil upon its mention. I know that bothers a fair number of people, and obviously I’m a (very) recent transplant, so what the heck do I know? Except: as a recent transplant who’s lived in four of the largest cities in the world—New York, L.A., Chicago and London—but has had family here since 1995, I’m frankly better positioned than most to speak on how the rest of the country/world views this region.

The more we stress that Raleigh and Durham—plus Chapel Hill, Cary, and the rest—are distinct standalone islands as opposed to a connected whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts, the less interesting the region becomes to everyone else when they’re looking for a new place to move their business or themselves. We're stronger together than apart. JMO, except it’s objectively true and I shall brook no dissent.

Guiding The Way

Expanding on what it originally launched last August, WRAL TechWire has unveiled a quite cool, interactive, in-depth guide to the Triangle startup ecosystem. It lives on its own exclusive domain. The site is intended to be a resource for entrepreneurs and includes “everything from investors and funding sources, to accelerators and incubators, to membership networks, to free meetups and other events.” Check it out!

Scaling Mt. Startup

More news for aspiring entrepreneurs: the Techstars Startup Weekend is coming to the Triangle from April 5-7 at Durham’s American Underground. The 54-hour event will focus especially on AI, because it’s all about AI these days. Basically it's an intense startup bootcamp where participants will form teams starting Friday at 6:30pm and make as much progress as possible on a startup idea before 9pm on Sunday. Early bird registration (by March 15) is $75, and $50 for fulltime students. Bonus fun fact: Duke-Fuqua MBA student Samia Haimoura, who’s organizing the event, became the youngest Moroccan to scale Mount Kilimanjaro when she did so last year at age 23.
Because too much news is never enough
See our full, ruthlessly curated calendar of Triangle tech events here.
Any news we should know? Hit "reply" or send it to news@grepbeat.com.

Love what you see? Subscribe! And follow us on Twitter!

This thing doesn’t write itself.
Credit (or blame) Managing Editor Pete McEntegart.

It also doesn't pay for itself. Become a sponsor!






This email was sent to <<Email address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
GrepBeat · 121 East Parrish Street · Durham, NC 27701 · USA