The latest Friday Noonerincluded the first bagpipes solo in show history courtesy of guest John Starke, the Founder and CEO of Raleigh-based MyMatR, a Primordialcohort startup that we first featured in June, 2021.
Venture Connect
Are you gearing up for CED’s two-day Venture Connect summit, which takes place tomorrow and Thursday at the Citrix Building in downtown Raleigh? We are. And we’d like to help you be as prepared as possible. To that end, we’ve collected this handy cheat sheet with links to GrepBeat stories on an even 40 Triangle tech startups that will be pitching this week. We published eight of them over the past month: SneakPeek, Atlantic Fish Co., Modern Ritual Health, Alithia Power, Onda Vision, AxNano, Verinetics and Trusted AI Solutions. The other 32 are presenting startups that we’ve featured—often multiple times—in the past.
If you’ll be at Venture Connect, please swing by the GrepBeat table. We’ll be offering a special 15% discount off Grep-a-palooza 3 tickets exclusively to Venture Connect attendees that is available through Thursday night. (The discount code will be available at our table.) And that discount is off our Very Early Bird rates of $99 for Startup Founders/Employees and $199 for Everyone Else.
Find our cheat sheet to the presenting startups here, our overall preview of Venture Connect here, a WRAL TechWire preview here, and the Venture Connect site here.
About Time
A few years back, NC State alum Sunny Bhathela went looking for a high-end watch that honored his Indian heritage. When he didn’t find one he liked, he decided to design his own. The result is Cary-based startup VIANI, which makes solar-powered watches that use raised Hindi numerals on the face.
One good way to get in the “ecosystem spirit” before Venture Connect is to attend RIoT’s 10th Anniversary bash tonight from 5-7 at the Raleigh Founded location at 509 W North St in downtown Raleigh. The GrepBeat team will be there. See more info here.
And to prep for tonight’s event, here is RIoT Executive Director Tom Snyder looking both back over the past 10 years and then ahead on all things IoT (Internet of Things, natch) in his WRAL TechWire column from yesterday.
TikTok's Future
The battle over TikTok’s future in the U.S. is currently stalled in the Senate, which hasn’t yet taken up a bill that passed the House with a broad majority that would force Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its U.S.-based operations to a U.S. company within six months or face a ban. But there are some passionately interested TikTok-watchers in the Triangle, including Raleigh-based fashion startup Sani. As Triangle Inno writes, TikTok invited Sani co-founders (and sisters) Niki and Ritika Shamdasani to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress directly.
Sani’s first big breakthrough came via a viral TikTok video and the platform has continued to be crucial to the marketing success of the South Asian clothing brand, which we first profiled in April 2019. (Niki was also a panelist at last year’s Grep-a-palooza 2.) It’s a good reminder of the potential real-world impact of legislation, including in our Triangle tech community.
New CEO
Durham-based cleantech firm 8 Rivers has named Texas attorney Chris Richardson as its new CEO. Last June, 8 Rivers unit Net Power went public via a SPAC deal; Net Power develops net-zero-energy plants. According to Triangle Inno, the current plans are for 8 Rivers to keep a majority interest in its next priority project, which is dubbed Project Cormorant and is an ultra-low-carbon ammonia production facility in Port Arthur, Texas. Richardson will be based in both Houston and Durham, where he has an apartment and plans to spend most of his time. See Triangle Inno for the full story.
Local Launchpad
TBJ recently profiledDedric Carter, who is now UNC’s chief innovation officer and vice chancellor for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development. That title is a mouthful—a specialty of universities—but basically it means that he is overseeing UNC’s efforts to commercialize its research, including by launching new startups.
The Kannapolis native comes to UNC after a decade in a similar role (as chief commercialization officer) at Washington University in St. Louis and has three degrees from MIT, including an MBA. Sounds like an interesting guy; it’s worth a read.
Quick-Hitters
Today is one of those jam-packed-with-news days so there’s no time for transitions: 1) Raleigh-based AI startup Howso (formerly Diveplane) has been selected by Microsoft to join the latter’s Pegasus Program, an invite-only go-to-market and sales acceleration program. The partnership means that the Howso engine and other tools will be available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. See TechWire and this Howso release for more.
2) Raleigh-based startup WhistleStop has landed a deal with the Atlantic Coast Conference to use the WhistleStop device in baseball this year and softball next year. The gadget is worn by umpires or referees and syncs with the game clock, sending vibrating alerts. See TBJ for the full story.
This is usually the spot where exclusive newsletter sponsor Dualboot shares how terrific they are at building your tech, but today they have a special—and very timely—message: “This year, we are thrilled to introduce the inaugural Dualboot Partners Bracket Challenge Fundraiser for March Madness with an ambitious goal of raising $5,000!
Here's how it works: Participants can choose a nonprofit organization they care about to represent for $20 per bracket. At the end of the tournament, the three participants with the most accurate brackets will win the title and, more importantly, the combined entry fees will be donated to their chosen nonprofit.
A full 100% of the donations will go to the charities, with the top three receiving 50%, 30% and 20% respectively. In addition, Dualboot Partners will award $500, $300, and $200 gift cards to the winners.
Choose your nonprofit, fill out your brackets, and join us in supporting worthy causes while enjoying the excitement of March Madness! Please submit your brackets by Thursday at 11 a.m."
Extra Bit
Duke is hosting a Web3 conference this weekend that kicks off Friday night (March 22) from 4-8 p.m. with a happy hour and runs all the way through a Sunday night (March 24) After-Party from 9pm-midnight(!). This year’s event will highlight Zero Knowledge Proofs, Trust, and Identity as well as Real World Asset Tokenization and share how these innovations will drive the resurgence of Web3. You can register for the conference here. There are also a few spots left for startups/projects to compete in a Web3 pitch competition; you can apply for that here.
Real talk: doing our best to serve you costs money. Businesses and organizations that would like to support our efforts should see our sponsorship opportunities here.
