Just four more days until the Aug. 30 deadline—that’s Monday at 5 p.m. ET—for nominations for our inaugural Startups To Watch list. To be eligible, the startup must be headquartered in the Triangle and have annual revenues of less than $5M. Sorry, no life sciences/biotech/medical device startups. Yes, you can nominate your own startup. We’ll unveil the list at an invite-only event on Thursday, Sept. 23.
1 + 1 = ?
Hot off the virtual presses: Durham-based ArchiveSocial announced this morning that it is merging with Monsido, and also that it’s officially completed its previously announced acquisition of NextRequest. Monsido is HQ’d in Denmark but has offices in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. ArchiveSocial is the leading provider of public records and archiving software for the social media accounts of government agencies, schools and other groups that need such record-keeping. Monsido is currently focused on web governance, and the combined entity will offer digital compliance solutions across both the web and social media. (Here's a TechWire story on the merger.)
You’ll surely recall that ArchiveSocial was founded in 2011 by Anil Chawla, who was recently awarded the inaugural Greppy Award in the special category of “Best Leveraging of Triangle Resources” for the way he took advantage of everything from NC IDEA grants to the Startup Factory accelerator to early space at American Underground to help supercharge the passion and smarts he already brought to the table. In 2019 ArchiveSocial received a $53M growth investment from PE firm Level Equity that provided a nice exit for Anil and early investors. With Anil taking a step back as Executive Chairman, ArchiveSocial brought in formerDownload subject Ray Carey as CEO and has been putting Level Equity’s cash to work on its growth strategy powered by mergers and acquisitions—or in this case, an acquisition followed by a merger. And so the life cycle of a successful tech company continues.
Nice Duds
Personally, I’d be psyched to have a job where it’s not just acceptable but encouraged to wear pretty much the same thing every day. Then again, I have very little fashion sense. That’s not the case for Alysha Totemwongs, a fashion-forward healthcare worker who was so tired of wearing the same old industry-standard scrubs that she’s launched the startup Good Measure, which is developing stylish medical apparel. Good Measure participated in this summer’s Andrews Launch Accelerator at NC State and will launch its first line of fashionable scrubs for women (who account for 70% of healthcare workers) in the spring of 2022. Read our full story here.
Crypto Kid
William Clemente is a 19-year-old from Fuquay-Varina who’s a junior at East Carolina. He is also a leading expert on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies with 197.8K followers on Twitter. William turned himself into a bitcoin authority starting after ECU sent him home at the start of the pandemic and he was looking for a hobby.
He’s certainly made the most of it, and on Monday CNBC gave him a shoutout as an expert voice on bitcoin. You may say that William is too young for that, and he hears you, telling WRAL: "I’ve taken two finance classes, and you know, I don’t even have any hair on my face. So, you know I completely get that." Well, I do have hair on my face, but I don’t have multiple Twitter accounts pretending to be me, hoping to draft off a huge audience. (See here and here.) William 1, Pete 0.
Energy Jolt
Durham-based energy storage firm FlexGen announced a $150M equity raise yesterday, which is believed to be the largest yet in the sector. The investors are making a bet on FlexGen’s integration and software technology, as well as the anticipated growth of the energy storage industry as the electricity grid increasingly turns to renewable energy sources. Consider: when the sun isn’t up or the wind isn’t blowing, solar panels and wind turbines (respectively) don’t actively generate electricity, so it’s necessary to “bank” energy when the sun shines/wind blows. Thus, energy storage. See TechWire or TBJ for more.
Drink It Up
Durham-based grocery-shelf-storytelling startup Looma Project, which we profiled last July, is bringing its products to the Midwest. Looma makes human-centric videos telling the stories behind brands, especially wine and beer labels, that it displays on point-of-purchase tablets. After starting locally with Harris Teeter and Lowe’s Foods, Looma is partnering with the St. Louis-based Schnucks grocery chain. Looma’s tablets have already been installed in the beer and wine departments of 89 of Schnucks’ 111 locations. See the full Looma release here while I stifle a chuckle from repeatedly saying "Schnucks."
Pop-Up Lockers
This week, Durham-HQ’d Bell and Howell introduced its interestingly titled QuickCollect GO! POD. In layman’s terms, it’s a mobile “store-in-a-box” that allows for automated pickup at remote sites. So instead of driving to a store to pick up something you ordered online from one of those locker contraptions, the retailer can tow one of these contraptions into a parking lot, say, and let consumers pick them up there. 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.
Extra Bit
This quarter’s newsletter sponsor Durham Bottling Company (just scroll up a bit!) is hosting an end-of-the-summer, (mostly) outdoor block party this evening from 5-10 p.m. at 506 Ramseur Place in downtown Durham. There will be Ponysaurus beer on tap, food trucks and live music from 8-10 as you network in the site of the Triangle's newest, and arguably coolest, coworking space. Should this impact your decision one way or another, I plan to swing by on the early end. You can RSVP here.
Guess where Pete is and (maybe) win a GrepBeat mug!
This week’s winner is Venus Liles for correctly identifying my location as Chanticleer in Cary. Venus is the first winner who already had her own “day”—we dubbed May 25 “Venus Liles Day”—but this is her first GrepBeat mug, because (of course) the mugs can only be won. That’s why they’re so coveted!
Now let’s hear from Venus: “I’ve been a GrepBeat fan since day 1 (learning first about the newsletter while attending a Shark Tank viewing party at American Underground a few years ago) and a member of the startup ecosystem in the Triangle for over a decade supporting local entrepreneurs as a business attorney. I’m super excited to be embarking on my own startup called qcard™: video stickers that let you attach a personalized video to any object in a matter of seconds. You can scan the one on my hand in the photo for a quick demo video and sign up on qcard.co for a free qcard sticker to try out yourself! And yes, I’m still practicing law with a mission to help entrepreneurs sleep better at night.”
We wrote about qcard earlier this year—on Venus Liles Day, natch. And we applaud Venus for her marketing savvy in sending an interactive photo.
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