Welcome to the last GrepBeat newsletter of 2021! We’ll be going dark over the holidays. The newsletter will return the week of Jan. 3, but that week’s two editions will be handled by Jackie because Pete will (hopefully) be on a Caribbean cruise aboard the S.S. Omnicron. (Oops, sorry; we mean Carnival’s Mardi Gras.) He’ll take over again for the Tuesday, Jan. 11 edition.
Before we go, we’d like to leave you with a few stocking stuffers: 1) The 12 Days of GrepMas, in which the partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens and all the rest are replaced by... well, you’ll just have to watch. BTW it's sung acapella by Pete and Jackie. No, really. 2) It’s a Wonderful GrepBeat, inspired by the holiday classic starring Jimmy Stewart. 3) A dramatic reading of ‘Twas The Night Before GrepMas. Happy holidays and a very merry GrepMas to all!
Most-Read Stories
In what has become an annual tradition, today we’re running our list of GrepBeat’s most-read stories of the year, complete with commentary from yours truly. That’s all I’m going to say here, because you should all read it. You’re welcome.
Flying High
RTP-based SmartSky Networks, which is in the midst of rolling out an air-to-ground high-speed data network to keep you connected while on flights, has recently closed on nearly $70M in funding. That puts the company within $11M of its $100M goal for this round. Frankly, the thought of sitting crammed in Seat 18A while 18B spends an hour on a Zoom call strikes me as a dystopian nightmare, but YMMV.
SmartSky recently opened its first fully operational coverage zone across a contiguous portion of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. OK, wait, if I can watch SEC football without any blips, maybe I’m back in. TechWire has more details.
Lending A Hand
Durham-based fintech LoanWell, a SaaS solution for community lenders that we’ve written about several times, has disclosed a $3M funding round. LoanWell started out as a DTC (direct to consumer) platform that enabled users to receive loans from community members in a crowdfunding-like feature. Later it pivoted to its current B2B platform, including serving as a white-label solution for community lenders with full end-to-end functionality to make and manage loans. TechWire has more info.
Funding Recap
Speaking of funding, here’s Triangle Inno’s latest recap of local raises, which highlights two rounds we’ve recently discussed in these virtual pages: the $140M Series B by Chapel Hill-based CData, and the $10M raised by Durham-based Kevel.
Try, Try Again
When it comes to bringing arguably the shiniest tech company of all to the state, NC Gov. Roy Cooper and his staff showed the value of stick-to-it-ive-ness. TBJ’s Lauren Ohnesorge has finally gotten her hands on a bunch of government emails—“released months after TBJ requested them,” the story archly notes—that shows how Cooper and his staff kept plugging along with Apple even after the company disappointed the Triangle by picking Austin (boo!) for a $1B campus in late 2018.
Of course, that persistence paid off this year with Apple’s announcement that it will build a campus in RTP (yay!) that will eventually mean up to 3,000 jobs.
Gearing Up
Pendo has added yet another public company vet to its board as it (maybe?) prepares for a potential IPO in the next year or two. This time it’s former Verisign CFO Dana Evan. She spent 12 years at Verisign, where she was a founding executive and helped lead the company from a venture-backed startup to a global corporation with over 5,000 employees—and a publicly traded corporation, at that. See TechWire for more.
Catching Up
We mentioned in passing the other day that former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has joined the board of Tanium, a cybersecurity startup based in Washington state. TBJ spoke to Jim to get the full skinny on Tanium and what else he’s up to these days. One nugget: he recently played golf with SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. That’s something we never expect to read about Jim Goodnight and Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney. (Loyal readers will recall the recent TBJ story that revealed that Tim and SAS’s Jim have only met once in person, and they mostly talked about rocks. Yes, rocks.)
Shuttle Seeker
Are you flying during the holidays? (I will be on Jan. 1 en route to my cruise, knock on wood.) Then you should know that RDU has launched a new app in partnership with TransLoc that will tell you—and show you—when the next shuttle bus will arrive. TransLoc, you’ll likely recall, is a Triangle success story that was founded out of NC State in 2004 and was eventually acquired by Ford in 2018. Here’s more on RDU’s shuttle bus tracker from TechWire and TBJ.
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.
To see all posted jobs, go to our (beta) CronJobs page. If you'd like your company to be listed, tell us at cronjobs@grepbeat.com and we'll do our best.
Guess where Pete is and (maybe) win a GrepBeat mug!
So this is a little embarrassing: I totally forgot about "Where's Pete?" this week. Nobody guessed via email. That's happened before, at which point I usually post it on Twitter and solicit guesses from there. Well, I plum forgot, perhaps around the time I was finishing up my holiday shopping list. So I guess we'll just keep the mug this week. Sorry. Though look for the new twist to "Where's Pete?" that's coming in 2022!
Oh, and the answer is the new-ish PRESS Coffee, Crepes & Cocktails across from the American Tobacco Campus in Durham. I've heard good things. There's actually a full bar to my left that you can't see in the photo; it's a sizable place. Check it out!
Any news we should know? Hit "reply" or send it to news@grepbeat.com.
