Miss EmpowHer

UNC senior Caitlyn Kumi first conceived of her startup Miss EmpowHer as a fundraiser to help her grandmother’s charity in Ghana by selling waist beads, a traditional African form of body jewelry. But the interest was so great, Caitlyn decided to turn it into a company and added the broader mission of female empowerment and body positivity. Read our full story on Caitlyn and Miss EmpowHer here. (BTW we love the company name.)

Staying On Task

Especially as remote work has surged during the pandemic, keeping far-flung teams on the same page is a bigger challenge than ever. That’s the problem that the operations management software from Raleigh-based Chekhub seeks to solve. In just a year since its founding, the bootstrapped startup is up to a team of 14 people and $1M in bookings. It’s now thinking about seeking funding, so the fact that it’s presenting at CED’s virtual Venture Connect summit (March 23-25) is quite timely.
 
One more nugget: Founder Jon Trout is a California transplant by way of an Austin layover who moved to the Triangle specifically to launch Chekhub in a region he saw as on-the-come. Read our full story on Chekhub here.

Fast Riser

Any account of the Triangle’s rise as a tech hub would include mention of serial entrepreneurs like Jes Lipson, and with good reason. The former ShareFile founder’s second startup, Real Magic, is zipping along after raising an additional $8M in funding and hitting the milestone of 2,000 paid customers for its keep-in-touch marketing software platform, Levitate. You might recall that it’s been just seven months since we wrote about Levitate breaking through 1,000 paid customers and raising $6M; the company has now raised $20M total in less than two years. The Raleigh-based startup already has over 100 employees and plans to hire 50-75 more in 2021 across all departments.  Now that’s some serious growth!
 
This current round comes from the company’s existing investors, which include Durham’s Bull City Venture Partners, as well as a direct investment from Jes himself, who tells GrepBeat: “It occurred to me that Levitate is probably a better investment than anything I could do in the stock market, so I decided to put a significant chunk of money in.” The Real Magic/Levitate team plans to celebrate this Saturday in Covid-friendly fashion with a drive-in-movie viewing of the appropriately magic-themed Now You See Me, paired with a charity food drive. For more on/from Jes, here is a Q&A with him from TechWire and an N&O story.

In The Air

Morrisville-based SmartSky Investco has raised another $26.9M to deploy its in-flight WiFi system for business and commercial aviation. It’s raised more than $400M since 2012, because apparently building air-to-ground, “single-beam-per-aircraft” WiFi is pretty darn expensive. But hey, the same folks forking over for corporate jets are likely also willing to toss in a few more bucks for reliable, fast internet. Personally I miss the days when you could just say, “Sorry, I’ll be on a flight and thus totally unreachable,” but this is what progress has wrought. You can find more info on TechWire and TBJ.

Added Support

Durham’s Courtroom5, a frequent GrepBeat presence, is one of five firms nationwide to land the backing of the women’s investment group SheEO. Courtroom5 is a case management platform that helps users represent themselves in court as pro se litigants founded by Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone. SheEO is a global community of “radically generous women” who are building a $1B perpetual fund to support women and non-binary entrepreneurs. Courtroom5 will receive an interest-free loan as well as access to SheEO’s “activators,” who will provide their buying power, networks and expertise. You can find out more from SheEO’s announcement or on TechWire.

Widen The Pipeline

The Research Triangle Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), which is now led by boldface name Joan Siefert Rose, is also doing its part to encourage diversity—in its case among the leadership of corporate boards. The local NACD chapter is teaming up with OnBoardNC and the UNC School of Law for a two-day virtual conference titled “Leading From The Boardroom: The Diversity Imperative” on April 6-7. The program is designed for current and aspiring corporate directors, and organizations interested in the latest data and insights on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and board decision-making. You can find more info here.

Go-Getter

For many early-stage startups, one topic can all but crowd out all others: how can we find funding? Zeke Trezise has some tips. Zeke is a UNC student and aspiring VC who is currently a Venture Fellow for New Stack Ventures. I spoke to him a few months ago and suggested that maybe he try to get something published in TechWire, and that if he did that I might link to it. Well, he did, and I am. Here is “Found & funded—4 ways to get your startup noticed.”

Booster Club

We’ve been talking a lot lately, including in this very newsletter, about the growing recognition of the Triangle as a tech startup hub. Today on Medium, IDEA Fund Managing Partner Lister Delgado makes his case for the Triangle’s potential. I’m a little surprised that Lister wasn’t able to work in that his son goes to Williams College, but I might be biased. You know who else went to Williams? OK, yes, me—but also Steve Case, and here’s TBJ’s recap of last Friday’s Rise of the Rest event.

Make It Legal

Hutchison is a boutique law firm that embraces the entrepreneurial spirit and steers technology and life sciences entrepreneurs to success through all stages of their company’s life. Hutchison partners with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial-minded organizations to enable business solutions that make the law work for them, and advises angel investors and venture capital firms to support their investment selections to maximize their potential for success. Hutchison takes the time to learn your business and understand what’s behind the deal.

Extra Bit

UNC’s Innovate Carolina would love for folks to participate in a survey on their workspace preferences to help inform its future programs. You can take the survey here by using the access code "innovatenc."

Because too much news is never enough.

• Durham agtech acquired in $23.7M deal with NC State link (TBJ)

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

This week’s winner is RIoT Executive Director Tom Snyder, who correctly identified my location as the Trophy Brewing & Pizza on Morgan Street in Raleigh. Tom is now the fourth winner from RIoT, including the second in three weeks. It seems that the random number generator might play favorites after all. Though Tom says this is maybe “only the 2^nd time ever” that he "thought" he knew where I was. Well, he was right.

While the below picture was originally taken for a different purpose—the RIoT team was representing Raleigh at what used to be known in olden times as a "convention"—you are looking at an unprecedented shot of four Where's Pete? winners. From left: Rachael Newberry, Tom, Caroline Griffin and Sarah Glova.