Can't we just pretend that I wrote something really clever here that will entice you to keep reading the newsletter? Yes? Great! I owe you one.
Reality+
In-person events are back (yay!) and we’ve got a doozy for you. Next Tuesday night from 5:30-7:30, RIoT is hosting the final pitch event for the RIoT “Your Reality” Augmented Reality (AR) Challenge at the Raleigh Founded Gateway location. The six finalists for the $40K grand prize will also be offering live demos of their AR wares. We’ve got the full story in today’s GrepBeat, including interviews with several of the finalists, two of which (LiRA and Blue Recruit) we’ve profiled in the past.
Read our preview story here, and register for the event here. Have we mentioned that it’s free and that there will be food and beer?
Cold, Hard Cash
Durham-based Phononic landed a $50M strategic investment from Goldman Sachs this week to help grow its solid-state cooling and refrigeration technology. Here’s a fun fact provided by Phononic: if left unchecked, by 2045 leaked refrigerants alone will contribute as much CO2 emissions as automobiles. That’s why Phononic’s sustainable tech is so interesting to Goldman’s new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-focused fund. Phononic has now raised a whopping $230M in total and has grown to 250 employees, 240 of them in the Triangle. And CEO Tony Atti didn’t mince words in telling TBJ what his goal is: to prepare for an IPO. (Here’s more from TechWire as well.)
Ongoing Trend
The next two items are from the “companies HQ’d elsewhere who are also setting up shop in the Triangle” category, which seems to grow every day. First up: Atom Computing, a quantum computing startup based in Berkeley, Calif., that just emerged from stealth(y) mode after raising a $15M Series A. Atom has hired Cary-based, ex-Lenovo exec Rob Hays as its CEO. Rob is staying in the Triangle, where Atom is opening what it’s calling its “corporate office,” which will house the executive team, marketing, business development and the like while the engineers stay back on the West Coast.
What is quantum computing, you might (reasonably) ask? Well, Rob gives a detailed Q&A to TechWire in which he tackles that question much better than I can. And here’s more from both TechWire and TBJ.
Still Ongoing
This next item belongs not only in the “companies HQ’d elsewhere who are also setting up shop in the Triangle” category but also in “company names that I’m not sure how I feel about.” To wit: N-able is a new, standalone public company (as of Tuesday) after being spun-off from SolarWinds. N-able is based in Ottawa, Canada (I think; they’re fairly cagey about where exactly their HQ is) but has a 60,000-square-foot office in Morrisville and is “hiring like crazy,” they tell TBJ. They currently have about 230 employees in the Triangle and plan to hire 20-25 more this quarter, and eventually grow to perhaps 400 employees. N-able is the former managed services provider (MSP) division of SolarWinds; it’s not the core IT management business of the parent company that was infamously hacked. (Here's more from TechWire too.)
Student Driver
Raleigh-based Element451, a college admissions engagement platform that we wrote about last February, has announced that its customer base has more than doubled in the last academic year. Well, that makes sense. While colleges and universities are (usually) not for-profit enterprises, they are certainly business entities with budgets that were blown apart during the pandemic. As schools scramble to repair their balance sheets, it’s more important than ever to compete for new students—and their tuition checks. FYI Cary’s Cofounders Capital is an Element451 investor.
Insight-full
Here’s a dual update on recent stories about two very similarly named Triangle tech companies: InsightFinder and insightsoftware. The former is a Raleigh-based startup founded by NC State CompSci professor Helen Gu that we first profiled in January. Now that it’s raised a fresh $2M from investors including Durham’s IDEA Fund Partners, it’s in full-on hiring mode.
Secondly, you might recall that the no-capital-letter insightsoftware—a charter member of the “company names I’m not crazy about” club—recently banked a whopping $800M investment. Naturally it has wasted little time in making yet another acquisition, its 18th in three years, by gobbling up the barely-better-named Australian tech company CALUMO. (BTW anyone who seeks to choose a good company name should reach out to GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy, who has very extensive and specific views on the matter.)
Updated Taste
Michael Lloyd, an NC Central-trained scientist, has revamped the “secret BBQ sauce” of his great-grandfather “Pop” to revive a Durham-based family business. The Num Num Sauce Company (great name!) is a healthy condiment startup; you can find their sauces at Triangle-area Whole Foods or online. And there was no way I wasn’t writing an item on Num Num after Lloyd said that his condiments have been developed with “Flavor Capacitor Flux Algorithm technology that mimics sodium and fat flavors.” Yes, please! See TechWire for more.
Bottled Up
If you’re looking for coworking space, you can always play it safe and glom on to a big chain like WeWork. And hey, they’re perfectly nice. But if you’re looking for something more local, gritty and—dare we say it—cool, then the soon-to-open Durham Bottling Company may be for you. Smashing Boxes CEO Nick Jordan bought the space at 506 Ramseur Street a few years back as a new company HQ but always had grander plans for the 16,000+ square feet. Enter Durham Bottling Company (DBC), which might sound like a new nightlife concept but is in fact a coworking and event space with a stated mission to create a more inclusive and diverse community. DBC offers all the usual amenities you’d expect (free coffee, hot desks, private offices, etc.) but also has a sister nonprofit entity that will help stage a monthly event series. You can get on the waitlist here.
Guess where Pete is and (maybe) win a GrepBeat mug!
This week’s winner is Greg Anglum, who was one of four people who correctly identified my location as the Common Grounds in Apex but was the only one smiled upon by the feared random number generator (RNG). Greg is also the third winner to date who (like me) is a proud member of F3, but for the record neither I nor the RNG knew that before his selection. (And RNG is not to be confused with "FNG," or "Friendly New Guy" in F3 parlance, which is what a F3 first-timer is called. But I digress.)
More from Greg: “I am the CFO at Bioventus so I am a little out of the tech scene currently and focused on medical devices. But as a 20-year resident of the Triangle and former board member of CED among other things, I am a big believer in this community and like staying close to what is going on. GrepBeat helps me with that. Thanks Pete!” You’re very welcome, Greg, and congrats on the big victory!
Any news we should know? Hit "reply" or send it to news@grepbeat.com.
