Pete Meets...

When I interviewed Brian Handly, the CEO of Raleigh-based Reveal Mobile, for the newest episode of Pete Meets... podcast, there were a few things I had to cover. We needed to talk about Reveal Mobile, of course. I wanted to ask about how his previous startup, Accipiter, had actually managed two exits sandwiched around “buying” it back. His childhood on a farm in Missouri was certainly of interest. But most of all, I wanted to discover which of us was faster.

Well, dear readers/listeners, you can imagine my dismay to learn that in November, Brian ran a faster 5K than I did that very same month—while dressed in a turkey suit. You can literally hear my crest fall when he said that he completed the race in under 21 minutes for the 3.1 miles. Though because he is a man of honor—and there’s nothing that runners prize more than honesty about their race times—Brian emailed me later the same day to say he had double-checked his time and had actually run a 21:38. But that’s still some 10 seconds faster than I did while wearing regular running clothes, and he’s also a year-plus older than me. If you want to hear more about Brian’s well-deserved victory lap, you can read our teaser story here or listen to the podcast here. Also: subscribe! And thanks as always to our season sponsor TriNet.

WAVE Riders

The three young Co-Founders behind the Chapel Hill-based startup WAVE were all set to roll out their find-the-hottest-nightspot app right after Spring Break. They’d planned launch events and lined up liquor sponsors. You can guess what happened next—the pandemic rolled in, most UNC students didn’t even return to Chapel Hill after Spring Break, and the bars on Franklin Street were quickly turned into a ghost town as they closed to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

Now, with the help of the Launch Chapel Hill accelerator, the WAVE team is pivoting. Instead of showing you which bar is the most packed so you can join the crowd, WAVE will essentially use the same technology to help keep crowds down to a safe level and well-distributed among the restaurants and bars that are open—or will (hopefully) soon be open. The retooled app will now be released at the start of the second semester. You can read our full story on WAVE here.

Epic Battle

If you’ve been following the legal showdown between Cary’s Epic Games and the tech giants Apple (especially) and Google over the hefty 30% fees that the big boys charge app developers for anything sold on their app stores, then WRAL TechWire has you covered. Yesterday and today, they’ve run a full slate of stories with boldface Triangle tech names like Scot Wingo, David Gardner, Tom Snyder and Jim Verdonik giving their take on Epic v. Apple in particular.

SEED Semis

NC IDEA has released the names of the 23 startups that have qualified as semifinalists for the support org’s famed $50K SEED grants. The Triangle dominates the list with 15 out of the 23—more than 65%—including GrepBeat story subjects Blue Recruit, Growga, Newsco and Wrangle. The half-dozen or so winners will be announced in mid-November.

Alumni Gathering

American Underground and Google For Startups last week announced the six NC startups that will participate in this year’s fifth annual Black Founders Exchange. This year’s cohort will be virtual and will focus on alumni founders from past years. Four of the six are from the Triangle: SpokeHub, plus GrepBeat story subjects Courtroom5, LoanWell and Coworks.

Women In Tech

Last week we mentioned NC TECH’s Thursday-and-Friday virtual Women In Tech Summit. If you missed it, don’t worry—TechWire and TBJ can catch you up. NC TECHs own Tracy Sternberg recapped the event on TechWire. Meanwhile TBJ had a piece on the talk given by Dallas Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall and another on the importance of raising the issue of race in addition to gender.

Hocus Pocus

A new study from Pitchbook ranks Duke No. 20 and UNC-Chapel Hill No. 39 on its ranking of university programs that are most effective in producing entrepreneurs. NC State didn’t make the list at all. Hmmm. You know what, I view all these rankings lists the same way I do horoscopes. I like to look at them, and if I agree with what it says and/or it’s good news, then I find them insightful and even authoritative. But if I don’t like the result, I simply dismiss it as absurd, non-scientific nonsense. Really, you should try it. BTW I’m a Cancer.

Besides, if Triangle universities were so bad at producing entrepreneurs, would Duke be able to announce a record $65M in licensing from helping launch 17 startups this past year? I don’t think so!

C-Suite Honors

Those award-mad folks at TBJ are at it again, this time doling out C-Suite Awards across the Triangle. The tech-y winners include CEOs Seth Patin of Accelogix and LogistiVIEW (whom we wrote about in April) and Cree’s Gregg Lowe; CMO Michelle Engle of Valassis; and Spiffy CFO Wes Pollard. Congrats to all the winners!

Extra Bit

Bad news, futurists: it sounds like the Triangle won’t be landing the Virgin Hyperloop after all, says TBJ. Though I guess being able to get to RDU in like 22 seconds isn’t as important when nobody flies anywhere anyway.

Guess where Pete is and (maybe) win a GrepBeat mug!
 

Who's afraid of the big, bad random number generator? Not you! So send your guesses here.