We’re sending this newsletter early so that our team can be literally and figuratively present at today’s Venture Connect summit in RTP. If you’ll be there too, stop by the GrepBeat table to say hi!
Pete, Joe and Chantal welcome the one-and-only Scot “One-T” Wingo on tomorrow’s Friday Nooner. You can watch live on LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube, or catch afterward on those same platforms on in podcast form.
Register now for the next GrepBeat Happy Hour, which is two weeks from today (Thursday, April 21) from 5-7 at Bull McCabe’s in Durham. Your first round will be courtesy of our sponsor, real estate kingpins Davis Moore Advisors. Whom I also see at today's Venture Connect btw.
Grep-a-palooza Deal!
We’re officially opening registration for the inaugural Grep-a-palooza with a special one-day deal: for today only, startups teams can sign up for just $69 per person. Click that Eventbrite now! Grep-a-palooza is a full-day conference focusing on early stage tech startups in the Triangle that will be held on Thursday, June 9, at the Durham Convention Center. The event includes keynote speakers, relevant panel discussions, networking opportunities, and more, all capped with an after-party at Bull McCabe's. Stay tuned for many more details to come, but we can say to look out for Pendo’s Todd Olson and Spiffy Czar Scot Wingo onstage.
After the one-day $69 special for startup teams that ends tonight at 11:59 p.m., startup teams (founders and employees) will have an Early Bird rate of $99 through April 30, going up to $199 on May 1. Everyone else—i.e. service providers, investors, and anyone not working on a startup—can access an Early Bird rate of $199 starting right now and extending through April 30, then $299 after May 1. Here’s the full Eventbrite.
Venture Connect
Hey, did we mention that we’ll be at Venture Connect today? Maybe you will be too, in which case you should definitely take advantage of our handy guide of the Triangle-based tech startups that will be presenting today. Not only do we have capsules on each startup, but we have links to the in-depth feature stories that we’ve written on 35 of them. We’ve rolled out 10 new features over the past month—including those in the next two items—and previously wrote about 25 more, some of them more than once. Read (and/or skim) to your heart’s content!
Training for first responders like the Raleigh Fire Department can be tricky because it’s hard to learn firsthand how to react to a life-and-death situation without, you know, lives being put in danger. That’s where the VR training modules from Raleigh-based NextGen Interactions come in. They use VR to create hyper-realistic training scenarios for the RFD as well as clients like Google, Intel and AT&T. The startup is presenting this afternoon on the Peak Stage at Venture Connect, but you can read our story here to prepare yourself.
Health-y Offering
We have one more Venture Connect presenter to tell you about today: Cary-based CareNexis. The startup is a digital health platform offering personalized education, healthy living content and specific health recommendations and products to consumers. In other words, a more personalized healthcare retail experience. CareNexis is slated in the 11am block on the Rock Stage. Read our full story here so you have an idea what to expect.
Driver To Drink
As excited as I am about Venture Connect and the one-day-only Grep-a-plaooza $69 offer for startup teams, I am (almost) as geeked up for today’s first round of the Masters Tournament. In fact last night I drafted my squad of six in a pool against my college friends. (My first pick: Scottie Scheffler.)
But Raleigh-based Next Century Spirits has much more on the line at Augusta National. That’s where the startup will officially announce a new product line of cocktails-in-a-can with their new partners, golf legend—and world-class entrepreneur—Greg Norman. The famed Great White Shark is a major player in wine and spirits with an extensive distribution network worldwide, including relationships with hundreds (thousands?) of golf courses. And these canned cocktails—a rum-based drink called the Transfusion and the Half & Half, which is essentially a spiked Arnold Palmer—are designed to be enjoyed on the course, at the 19th hole, or anywhere else. Read our full story here.
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 CronJobs. 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!
This week’s winner is Zach Bradshaw, who describes himself in sports-call-in-radio terms as a GrepBeat “long-time, first-time.” (Aficionados will know that means a long-time listener who’s calling in for the first time, while in this case it means a longtime GrepBeat reader who’s writing in for the first time.) I had to go to Twitter to find a winner, and Zach was the first to identify that I was at Durham’s Mad Hatter Cafe + Bakeshop.
Says Zach, “I knew looking at Twitter during work hours would pay off eventually. Instead of a picture of me celebrating, here's a picture of a picture of me on my first day at Bronto Software in 2015, where I had to come up with a word that described how I was feeling and it had to include ‘Bronto.’ A little about me... I'm a software engineer at Doma, where we're architecting the future of real estate transactions. When I'm not working I like to run and go fishing. I'm also the maintainer of everylotdurham, a Twitter bot that posts pictures of... every lot in Durham.” Congrats, Zach!
Any news we should know? Hit "reply" or send it to news@grepbeat.com.
