Today's the day, folks! Join us and the scores who have already registered for the GrepBeat Happy Hour from 5-7 p.m. tonight at Bull McCabe's in Durham to cap off Day One of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week (RDSW). Be sure to thank our sponsor, Dualboot Partners, in person as your first drink will be courtesy of them. FYI if Eventbrite tells you we're full, that's just because they want more money from us to raise the artificial ticket "limit"—come anyway because there's plenty of room out on the lawn.
ICYMI: RDSW starts today and who better to talk about what's new with the four-day event than its Co-Founder Archie O'Connor himself? Archie joined Pete and Joe on last week's Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—to give you some insight of what's to come for the following four days... or three, after today? You can catch up on what he has to say once you get past Joe talking about his chickens on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook or in its podcast form.
The founders of this student-run venture capital firm are a prime example of what that first-year fire can achieve at the beginning of your college career.
Already experienced in finance and investing, UNC-Chapel Hill freshmen Bhuvan Meruga and Andres ValdiricreatedFirst Frontier Ventures—with help from fellow first-year Rishab Jain from Harvard University—to invest in pioneers of new industries. And they've already received some local help, as they have partnered with Triangle-based 2ndF, a company founded by former Global Data Consortium CEO (and past Grep-a-palooza keynote speaker) Bill Spruill.
Read our full story on First Frontier Ventures here.
Privacy Protected
Have you ever not been credited for your work? Have you seen pieces of art or content shared across social media platforms without ever knowing who created it? Kahanacan help to prevent these problems for, specifically, content creators to monetize digital content by protecting them from creator piracy.
While Kahana is based in Chicago, its Triangle ties run deep—Co-Founders Jonathan Gans and Adam Kershner were freshman-year roommates at Duke. Those ties landed Kahana a slot to present at CED’s Venture Connect summit in Raleigh last month, which is how they got on our radar. You can read more about them here.
"Progress" Maker
Durham-based ProcessMaker announced this morning that they've acquired Helsinki, Finland-based Workfellow—which was certainly looking for a suitor. Founded in 2019 and having raised a $3M seed round in late 2021, it was announced in February that the Finnish company had ceased operations due to financial difficulties.
Though no price of the acquisition was mentioned, Workfellow still obviously harbored real value, as the acqui-hire of the company's founders and the addition of its products will help to enhance and expand ProcessMaker's suite of process automation solutions. This is the second overseas acquisition that they have done, the first being in late 2022—which we have covered in a previous newsletter. You can read the full press release of the acquisition of Workfellow here.
Loyal GrepBeat readers are no stranger to what goes on in ProcessMaker and with its Co-Founder and former CEO Brian Reale. He has been featured in everything from an early (in GrepBeat history) Q&A to a Download subject to a guest on Exit Stories... there's honestly a lot so you can see all of where Brian (and ProcessMaker) has appeared here.
You Can Do It Too!
YOU get to invest in a startup, and YOU get to invest in a startup, EVERYBODY gets to invest in a startup! Or don't, that's your prerogative. But this Startup Showcase is giving you the chance to do so. Sponsored by Triangle-based crowdfunding support org Incolo and Boston-based KingsCrowd and hosted at Chapel Hill's Industrious co-working space, they are bringing in three Triangle-based startups to share more about their growth plans and give you an opportunity to invest in their live crowdfunding rounds.
In an evening of networking and learning about startup investment opportunities, this event is for anyone looking to explore angel investing in the North Carolina startup community. And you don't need to be an accredited investor to participate in a crowdfunding round. The free event will be held on Wednesday, April 24 from 5:45-7pm. You can find all the info and register here.
State of Tech
NC TECH's largest annual content-oriented conference returns on May 22-23 at the Durham Convention Center (hey, just like Grep-a-palooza on June 4!) to kick off the NEXT TECH Awards Celebration that will feature the presentation of the Next Tech Awards on the 22nd. We've previously covered the 2020 event when it was fully virtual. This year's event has a projected attendance upwards of 400 people... oh how the times have changed (for the better)!
They are calling for startups who'd like a chance to present their company as part of the Startup Showcase. The deadline for startups to apply is this Friday, April 12. They're also seeking speakers for breakout sessions. Get all the info and more here.
The British Are Coming!
A cool British tech company is anchoring down in NC as it plans to build its first U.S.-based office in Research Triangle Park. And while I'm sure it is pretty cool on a personal level too, the firm Iceotope Technologies creates cooling systems for data centers... was that a bit of a reach?
Iceotopes' Chief Commercial Officer Nathan Blom said that they already have staff centered out of the Triangle, but this new office in RTP will pool together a proximity of companies they already or would like to partner and work with. Guess the Triangle is pretty cool overseas, too! Read TBJ's coverage of the company's landing.
Social Media Divides
Social media has been a central target to government scrutiny for a while, with a recently passed measure in the House that would essentially ban TikTok if it doesn't sell to a U.S. company within six months (the Senate hasn't yet taken up the bill). Now local governments are banding together, as Wake County is the latest entity to join a lawsuit against social media giants like Meta's Instagram, Snapchat and Google.
The lawsuit brings light to a national concern that “children are suffering an unprecedented mental health crisis fueled by [social media companies’] addictive and dangerous social media products.” Read the full Triangle Inno story here.
Build Great Software
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