ICYMI: I know I definitely missed it because it happened during the media blackout I gleefully undertook during my Caribbean cruise, but Greg Lindberg’s conviction was overturned on June 29 by a federal appeals court that ruled that the judge in his bribery case gave bad instructions to the jury. So now the founder of Global Growth (formerly Eli Global) is out of prison as he awaits a likely new trial. Oh, the twists and turns!
Great Match
This also qualifies for the ICYMI tag, but on Friday we ran a story on the recent acquisition of Durham-based healthcare staffing startup Matchwell by Omaha-HQ’d (and PE-backed) Medical Solutions. Matchwell Founder and CEO Robert Crowe couldn’t (wouldn’t?) say how much the deal was for, but did say he felt like it enabled him to “play Santa Claus” for his investors and 62 employees, who all received equity checks. We first profiled Matchwell last February, which you should click on if only to see the pretty amazing beard and handlebar-esque mustache combo he was rocking at the time.
Robert has now gone a bit more corporate with a closer-cropped beard, but hey, if that’s what it takes to land a corporate backer that gives investors and whole team a nice payout while also positioning Matchwell for serious growth, then it’s well worth it. Read our full story on the deal here.
Going Deep
Donald Thompson hasn’t exactly been a stranger to the virtual pages of the GrepBeat newsletter, but we’d never really taken a deep dive into the background of the CEO of Raleigh-based The Diversity Movement. We rectify that today with Suzanne’s feature story, which to my excitement includes the word “football” more often than any other story in GrepBeat history, edging out the previous champ 6-5.
Read our Donald Thompson profile here. Very interesting guy.
Speedy Trials
We’ve also got two hot-off-the-presses GrepBeat feature stories to share on startups that were recentlynamed as new additions to Scot Wingo’s Tweener list. First up is Chapel Hill-based Devana Solutions, which makes software for the clinical trials industry. Serial entrepreneur Barry Lake launched the startup in 2016 to help clinical trials run more efficiently so that life-saving drugs can get to patients more quickly. The startup hit $100K in ARR (annual recurring revenue) by 2018 and has since surged to $2M ARR. Now it’s looking to roughly double its 12-person team by the end of the year.
Today’s Tweener II (Tweener Too?) is Raleigh-based Bloom AI. Amit Shanker founded the startup on the insight that just because companies these days collect so much data that they can generate dashboards that are the digital equivalent of the instrument panel of a 747 doesn’t mean that they should. Instead, Bloom AI transforms the fire hose of data into shorter, more manageable analytical summaries that help generate relatively simple, actionable insights. Read our full story here.
On Location
A team from WRAL is racking up the frequent flyer miles by spending this week in Vietnam for some on-the-spot reporting at VinFast’s HQ in Hanoi, Vietnam. VinFast, of course, is building a $4B megasite in Chatham County to make electric vehicles and batteries. VinFast is getting more than $1.2B in tax incentives from the state and county for picking North Carolina for the company’s first factory outside Vietnam. Here's a story from WRAL reporter Matt Tallhelm (who will be the one on your TV screen), plus another TechWire story on the construction timeline—leveling and grading will begin this month.
Powering Up
Global power management company Eaton is another international player beefing up its presence in the Triangle. Eaton already has 650 employees in Raleigh and is hiring for 170+ positions, including data scientists and software engineers. The beefed-up workforce will help meet growing demand for data center solutions and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Also if GrepBeat wants to send me to Eaton’s global HQ (in Dublin, Ireland) to learn more I could be on a plane first thing in the morning. I’d go tonight, but I need a little time to let many, many Irish relatives know that I’m on the way.
Raleigh’s Reveal Mobile has banked $722K in new funding, according to an SEC filing. Which reminds me: I need to follow up with CEO Brian Handly (a former Pete Meets... guest and Download subject) on joining F3, which we chatted about at the Tweener List event last month.
Odds & Ends
There’s too much news to be constrained to eight items, so here are a few more: 1) UNC entrepreneurship professor Jim Kitchen, our favorite world traveler, has followed up his trip to space with a deep dive to the ocean floor—really, really deep. 2) If for some reason you didn’t watch/listen to the Friday Noonerfeaturing First Flight Venture Center President Krista Covey, you should do so now, then read this Q&A with her from TechWire. 3) Cofounders Capital’s David Gardner wrote for TechWire how it’s not enough for startups to just build a better mousetrap; it’s more important to convince people it’s better—except for the mouse, of course.
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