Tomorrow’s Friday Nooner guest is Will Bowen, the Co-Founder and CEO of Raleigh-based Givebacks, a fundraising platform for nonprofits. We named the startup to the inaugural GrepBeat Startups To Watch list in 2021 under its previous name, MemberHub, which we first profiled in November, 2019. You can watch live at noon on LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook, or catch afterward on those platforms or in its podcast form.
You might not know that “nontraditional” students—adult learners, online learners, first-generation college students, students from under-served communities—make up the majority of college students in the U.S. Well, Melvin Hines and Alex Pritchett knew that, which is why they created Durham-based edtech Upswing.
The startup offers a platform to colleges and universities that helps improve graduation rates—especially among under-served students—by connecting them to academic support services, mental health resources, advisors and more with the help of an AI virtual assistant named Ana. Melvin and Alex founded Upswing in the Triangle in 2013, moved to Texas to participate in an accelerator, moved back here after the pandemic, and recently received an investment from the Triangle Tweener Fund.
With April being Stress Awareness Month, our In The Soup podcast continues to tackle the intersection of startups and mental health. This week, the topic is founder burnout. Hosts Jenn Summe (Primordial) and Melissa Crosby (Colopy Ventures) welcome guests Tina Tang (Bristles) and Dr. Sarah Glova (Reify Media). You can listen—and subscribe!—here.
VinFast Potholes
It’s been a rough week for VinFast on the stock market, as well as closer to the Triangle. Word broke this week that in December, the Vietnamese auto company sent new plans to Chatham County that reduced the planned footprint of its EV factory complex by about 20% to 782K square feet from 995K sf.
As the N&O points out, that doesn’t necessarily mean that VinFast is cutting the size or planned output of the main production facility. But VinFast hasn’t clarified its intentions by sending updated plans in response to the county’s questions and comments, which also means that vertical construction on the site has all but ceased for the time being. That puts in jeopardy VinFast’s stated goal to have cars rolling off the assembly line in 2025, which was already delayed from the initial goal of later this year.
Meanwhile VinFast reported disappointing earnings on a call in which they didn’t say much about the Chatham County factory aside from the somewhat cryptic “North Carolina is still ongoing,” which is certainly a relief to the state’s residents. Those results contributed to VinFast stock dropping to $2.72/share as of press time; it was once as high as $93 on Aug. 28, when it was (briefly) the world’s third highest-valued automaker after Tesla and Toyota. The company is also dealing with a shareholder lawsuit, which to be fair are relatively common when a company’s stuck plummets. See more from these two N&O stories here and here; from WRAL.com; and TBJ.
Still Waiting
Triangle Inno has an update on the ongoing efforts to change Section 174 of the tax code, which has meant a huge increase in taxes for research-heavy startups (and others) because a provision that used to allow for R&D costs to be fully expensed wasn’t extended. In this case, no news is bad news. The bipartisan tax bill that overwhelmingly passed the House on Jan. 31 and included a fix to Section 174—among many other things, some of them much more high-profile—still hasn’t been taken up by the Senate. That’s in part because the bill also includes an extension of the child care tax credit, which many GOP Senators are recoiling from.
Meanwhile, Triangle Inno continues to document the real, human cost on local entrepreneurs who are dealing with mammoth unexpected tax bills—often on “income” that they never actually received—by slashing or forgoing entirely their own salaries just to keep the lights on.
GRO Incubator
CED unveiled this morning the largest cohort yet of its GRO Incubator. The 14 tech and life sciences startups will participate in a 12-week program that will culminate in a Demo Day on June 27. At a quick glance, more than half are on the tech side of the ledger, which is a “yay!” from our perspective. I hadn’t actually heard of any of them before seeing this list, but I have a feeling that GrepBeat readers (and me) will be learning much more about many of them in the months to come. See the CED site for the full release.
Inaugural Event
RIoT organized the first event at the new Cary Founded co-working space and startup community on Tuesday with the title: “The Path to Personalized Healthcare for All.” The panelists were Neal Shah, Founder & CEO, CareYaya; Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President & Cofounder, Valencell; David Reeser, Founder & CEO, OpiAID; and Donielle Jopko, Cone Health Ventures. If you want to see some highlights, CareYaya has shared this short (1:11) video.
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