Can you sense the electricity in the air??? No, it’s not another summer thunderstorm—it’s the palpable anticipation for Thursday’s GrepBeat Happy Hour. Our friend Nick Jordan and coworking spot Durham Bottling Co. will be both sponsoring and hosting the event from 5-7 p.m. at their digs at 506 Ramseur St in downtown Durham. Even better: your drinks will be on the house thanks to Nick and DBC. Please register so they can stock up appropriately.
Town Talk
We’ve written many stories about startups participating in accelerators, but today is the first time we’ve covered a town doing the same. In this case, it’s the Town of Cary making like a tech startup in the RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP). This isn’t the start of the relationship between Cary and RIoT, but it’s taking it to a new level. Nicole Raimundo, the Town’s Chief Information Officer, wants to change the mindset of her team to think in terms of product development. Indeed, Cary is building a low-power, wide-area network (an LPWAN) that will open up all sorts of IoT-related opportunities for Cary businesses and potential new revenue streams for the town.
Raleigh-based Revware is another non-traditional participant in an accelerator, in its case in CED’s GRO Incubator. Revware has actually been around for 30 years, but over time it morphed from selling others’ products to building its own software and hardware solutions, especially in the fields of 3D measurements and computer-aided design (CAD). Applications range from forensic scientists collecting data from human skulls (what’s Emily Deschanel up to anyway?) to ballistic researchers in the military. Revware CEO Tom Welsh hopes that rubbing shoulders with the whippersnappers in the GRO Incubator will keep Revware young at heart and on the cutting edge.
OK, time to get back to a much more familiar story: insightsoftware has made another acquisition, its eleventytenth this year. Oops, sorry, we’re hearing that it was only the Raleigh-based unicorn’s 22nd acquisition since it was formed four years ago in a private equity roll-up. This time, the target was Toronto-based Dundas Data Visualization, which does pretty much what its name suggests. TechWire has more info.
No Strangers
Sticking in the PE realm, TBJ’s Lauren Ohnesorge had some more detail on last week’s news that Austin-based Vista Equity Partners plans to acquire Avalara for $8.4B. Avalara is HQ’d in Seattle but has a sizable presence in Durham. Vista has plenty of Triangle ties, including its past acquisitions of Durham-based Automated Insights and Cary-based Relias, which it later flipped to Bertelsmann Education Group. If the past is prologue, the Vista-Avalara deal could mean growth for the company’s Triangle operations, at least in the near term.
Incentive Structure
2022 has been a banner year for the state’s economic development agencies, who can point to megadeals like VinFast’s upcoming $4B factory in Chatham County. Though as TBJ reports, the cities of Raleigh and Durham have booked zero projects winning state incentive dollars so far this year, with more rural counties landing the deals (and headlines). But there’s one major caveat: those cities have still been attracting new projects and expansions, they just haven’t needed to hand out any tax sweeteners to land them. Which sounds even better to these ears.
In a related story, at last Thursday’s conference on education and workforce hosted in Durham by the NC Chamber of Commerce, Durham Tech President J.B. Buxton called for the state to ramp up funding at community colleges to help train the high-tech workers that will be needed by employers like VinFast. See TechWire for more.
Good Read
Yesterday’s TechWire has a feature on Mel Wright and the Wright Center, the coworking and incubation hub that she founded in Raleigh at the start of the pandemic for Black women entrepreneurs and other marginalized founders. It’s worth a read, and we’re not saying that just because it was written by regular Friday Noonerco-host Chantal Allam. Speaking of: the Friday Nooner will return from its summer hiatus one month from today, Sept. 16. You're welcome.
Branching Out
We’ve previously mentioned Raleigh’s 321 Coffee in several contexts, including that the coffee shop staffed by workers with developmental disabilities has a location in Pendo’s new downtown HQ that is free to Pendo employees. Now 321 Coffee, which launched out of the Raleigh Farmers Market, is opening its first standalone, brick-and-mortar café in downtown Raleigh. See the N&O for more.
In A Galaxy...
Spiffy Czar and Triangle Tweener titan Scot Wingo is the “Local Limelight” feature in today’s Axios Raleigh, which breaks the news that he likes to unwind with “a little Star Wars.” It’s like we never knew you, Scot!
Build Great Software
Founded by serial entrepreneurs, Dualboot is a business and software development company. Their clients include tech and non-tech founders as well as Fortune 500 companies, so they can start small or scale fast depending on what you need. Every client is assigned a U.S.-based Product Director with at least 10 years experience bringing products to market, and they can manage the entire development process. They focus on how the software fits into your company to drive revenue and build the business. At Dualboot, they don’t just write your software—they help you grow your business. Intrigued? Email them here.
Extra Bit
Durham VC IDEA Fund Partners is looking for undergraduate and graduate students who’d like to join the firm’s Venture Fellows program for the Fall 2022 semester. It’s a parttime position with a commitment of about 10-15 hours a week. You can find more info here, and applications are due on Wednesday, Aug. 31.
This thing doesn’t write itself.
Credit (or blame) us directly via email.
It also doesn't pay for itself. If you share our mission to lift the Triangle tech community, please consider becoming an individual GrepBeat Supporter. And businesses should check out our sponsorship opportunities here, then
write us at sponsorships@grepbeat.com to become a sponsor.
