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Happy Tuesday!

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The Download

We might need to do a little more research to determine if Spoonflower’s Mike Jones is the most jacked CEO to appear in GrepBeat’s digital pages. (The beefy Cymatic co-founders could give him a strong challenge, no pun intended.) But we can say that Mike is the first to mention working out twice in the same sentence. He did that as this week’s subject of Brooks Malone’s Download Q&A. It’s impressive that Mike can still find the time to pump iron (or maybe he prefers bodyweight exercises?) given that Spoonflower, which is an on-demand digital textile company based in Durham, is booming these days given the Covid-inspired surge of ecommerce adoption. Read the full Q&A here.


 


Positive Play

The pandemic has also had a negative impact on the mental health of millions, exacerbating what was already a public health crisis, especially among young people. Raleigh-based startup Six Wing Studios is attacking that problem with a new video game called The Fog of Maya: Lotus Village. Within the game, players build a relationship with a virtual pet named Amaru by completing tasks geared toward self-care. Six Wing Studios raised $60K+ on Kickstarter to help get the game out and is also a semifinalist for one of NC IDEA’s $50K SEED grants. Read our full story on Six Wing and Founder Gabe Pappalardo here.


 


Exit Stories

Host Kevin Mosley of Jurassic Capital fame is back with another episode of the Exit Stories podcast, this one featuring DZone Co-Founder Matt Schmidt. Matt helped found DZone, an online community for developers that now goes by Devada, as a freshman at NC State. After being bootstrapped for nearly 15 years, RTP-based DZone sold to private equity firm SJW Capital in 2017—i.e., the “exit” in the podcast title. Read our episode teaser here, listen (and subscribe!) to the podcast here, or watch the YouTube video here. Thanks as always to Exit Stories season sponsor Dualboot Partners!


 


Highly Charged

One hang-up that some folks have when considering the purchase of an electric vehicle is: how big a pain will it be to keep it charged up? Don't worry, Scot Wingo and the Spiffy team are on it. The rapidly growing Durham-based mobile car care startup announced a partnership this morning with SparkCharge to deliver on-demand EV charging to Spiffy customers. Loyal Shark Tank viewers can tell you that SparkCharge just landed a deal with Mark Cuban and Lori Grenier on the show’s season premiere this past Friday. Scot also gave an interview to TechWire before the SparkCharge news broke on how Spiffy weathered a big early blow from the pandemic and is now surging ahead again.


 


Deal Doers

Raleigh-based unicorn Prometheus Group has acquired Illinois-based global data management firm Utopia Global, its fifth acquisition in the year since PE firm Genstar Equity became Prometheus’ majority owner. Prometheus primarily makes asset management software—“assets” primarily in the physical, not monetary, sense. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, even when I literally asked Prometheus CFO Michael Ives in person like two hourz ago. (Ives was visiting Colopy Ventures World HQ with Exit Stories host Kevin Mosley.) I get the sense that it’s a pretty big deal; I only wish I could say more.


 


BNNonanza

A Burlington-based startup led by two former Cree engineers—Jason Taylor and Steve Wilcenski—was just named as one of the three top winners among the 4,500 entrants in the 2020 Pepperdine Most Fundable Companies content. BNNano (cool name) does... well, let’s allow them to explain it: “BNNano leverages cutting-edge materials innovations to transform and return value to industrial commodities, facilitating applications such as aerospace, hypersonics, thermal management and additive manufacturing.” I understood like 70% of that.

Speaking of Cree, it announced yesterday that it’s selling its LED lighting unit for $300M to focus on its semiconductor businesses. Cree’s stock jumped to a new 52-week high on the news. Meanwhile Cree CEO Gregg Lowe told TBJ that the moves shouldn't lead to many, if any, job losses here in Durham.


 


New Digs

You might recall our last Coffee & Conversation from Oct. 2 on the “Post-Covid Office,” about how the physical workplace will be forever changed by the pandemic. (You should watch it now if you haven’t already.) Yesterday’s TechWire had an interesting Q&A on the same topic with Nakira Carter from JLL Carolinas, the local branch of global real estate company JLL. Last week, JLL also shared with TechWire how the company itself is returning to its Raleigh office.


 


News Nuggets

This is one of those days in which the news can’t be contained by eight numbered items, so here’s some more: A) Bandwidth has released architectural renderings of its planned new HQ in Raleigh. Take a look! B) GrepBeat story subject Wrangle is featured today on the influential tech site Product Hunt. C) Policygenius recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of its second HQ in Durham, where the online insurer has already hired 150 employees. You can find more open roles here.


 

Extra Bit

OK, two bits here: 1) RIoT’s annual IoT Demo Night will be entirely virtual this year on Tuesday, Nov. 10, starting at 4pm. The focus will be sports tech, especially esports, and will include a live collegiate esports exhibition game between NC State and Barton College. (Yes, NC State has a varsity esports team.) Speakers will include Jen Welter, the first female NFL coach; and former NBA head coach Keith Smart, best known for hitting the game-winning shot for Indiana in the 1987 NCAA championship game. (Sorry, Syracuse fans.) Click here for more info and to register. 2) NC TECH has revealed the finalists for its annual statewide NC TECH Awards, which this year will be presented during a three-day virtual celebration on Nov. 17-19. At a quick glance I counted nine startups that we've profiled in GrepBeat feature stories plus a bunch more that would be very familiar to our readers, but which I won’t list here because hey look at the time. But TechWire has the full list.

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

Posting these pictures just before I eat lunch makes me hungrier and hungrier. But enough about me. Send your guesses here!

 

Because too much news is never enough

                



    
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