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Startups To Watch

Last Thursday night, we had the honor of unveiling our second annual Startups To Watch list of 10 early-stage Triangle startups that we think will be making a lot of noise in the future. We did the honors at an invite-only event at The Pit in downtown Durham; you can see some highlights here.
 
The honorees (in alphabetical order) were: Acta Solutions, Allstacks, Built Story, CliniSpan Health, Dendi, Little Otter Health, LoanWell, Offline, Pattern Health and Viably. Each startup name is linked to the standalone story (or stories) we’ve written about them. Here is the overall story on this year’s event, with a capsule on each honoree. You can find last year’s winners here; it’s an entirely new list each year with no repeat honorees. Thanks again to this year’s Startups To Watch sponsors, Pacific Western Bank and Robinson Bradshaw!
 
NC TECH also released its state-wide Startups To Watch list on Thursday along with the 80+ finalists in other categories for its annual NC TECH Awards that will be announced at an event on Nov. 29. The list of 10 startups includes five GrepBeat story subjects: CliniSpan Health (which is also on our 2022 STW list), Fast QSR, Klearly, Rownd and Truentity Health. See TechWire for more.

Exit Stories

Season 3 of our Exit Stories podcast marches on with a familiar name/voice in the guest chair: Robbie Allen. You’ll surely recall Robbie as a frequent GrepBeat presence, including as the subject of this 2019 Q&A and as the host of the GrepBeat podcast For Starters. Today, he opens up with Exit Stories host Kevin Mosley on the best-known line on his resume: as the founder of StatSheet, which was later renamed Automated Insights to reflect a broader industry focus and was later acquired by PE firm Vista Equity Partners in 2015.
 
Skim some highlights of the episode here, then listen (and subscribe!) to it here.

Out-Sharked

Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang—the wife-husband team behind Triangle-based crochet kit startup The Woobles—emerged from their Shark Tank episode on Friday night looking like total bosses. They entered with an initial ask of $250K for 5% of their startup (a $5M valuation) and ended up with a deal with both Mark Cuban and Lori Grenier for $450K in exchange for 6% ($7.5M valuation). That was after all five Sharks made offers, four of them going in as two-Shark teams. The Team Woobles actually rejected all the offers and asked Lori and Mark to dump their “teammates” (Robert and Barbara, respectively) and team up with each other, which they did—to Barbara’s annoyance. Mark told Team Woobles with respect, “You guys are as sharky as we are.”
 
TBJ has the full story, including how a Friday night power outage wreaked havoc with Justine and Adrian’s scheduled viewing party.

Generating Sparks

FOG (Friend of GrepBeat) Venus Liles has created a grant program called Spark Grants to provide under-represented founders with up to $7,500 in legal services plus participation in a “Legal for Startups” workshop at a heavily subsidized rate of just $500. The program is funded by Venus’ startup law firm, Liles Law, in partnership with local sponsors—NC State’s Entrepreneurship Clinic, the UNC School of Law Institute for Innovation, Curious, Uncompany and PowerSecure.
 
Spark Grants has announced its first cohort of recipients; the plan is to have two cohorts a year. One of the four recipients, Social Cascade, is a former GrepBeat story subject. You can find more info on Venus’ LinkedIn page.

Techstars Weekend

Techstars and Knox St. Studios are teaming up to host a Techstars Startup Weekend in downtown Durham on Oct. 14-16 (Friday evening through Sunday) focusing on social innovation. Over the course of 54 hours, participants will break into teams and come up with some executable solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in the community. Tickets are $50 for entrepreneurs with a $25 student rate. Click here for all the information.

Office Tally

Another local (or partly local) data point has been entered in the back-to-office-or-not debate as Lenovo has unveiled a hybrid model for its workforce, including its sizable Triangle office. Specifically, it calls for three days in the office and two days of flexibility, going into effect on Oct. 31. That contrasts with Bandwidth’s five-days-in-the-office decree and is more along the lines of Pendo’s looser-still “flexible in-office model,” in which employees are encouraged (but not required) to visit an office on some regular cadence. See TBJ and TechWire for more.

Staying Single

Last week we mentioned that execs from Cary-based SAS said that the company is still preparing for a 2024 IPO, or at least preparing to be ready. Now TBJ looks into whether SAS’s growing partnership with Microsoft might lead to an acquisition by the tech giant rather than an IPO. The general view of the analysts that TBJ spoke to: probably not. Nothing to see here, folks, move along!

Shoutouts

Here are some quick shoutouts: 1) Durham-based visual intelligence startup BrightView Technologies, which we profiled in August, has opened a new UK subsidiary. See TechWire for more. 2) New Startups To Watch honoree Allstacks has rolled out a new product, Allstacks Alert. 3) Former GrepBeat story subject Vertical IQ has launched a new “industry intelligence” product for bankers.

Build Great Software

Founded by serial entrepreneurs, Dualboot is a software and business development company. Their clients include tech and non-tech founders as well as Fortune 500 companies, so they can start small or scale fast depending on what you need. Every client is assigned a U.S.-based Product Director with years of experience bringing products to market, and they can manage the entire development process. They focus on how the software fits into your company to drive revenue and build the business. At Dualboot, they don’t just write your software—they help you grow your business. Intrigued? Email them here.

Extra Bit

If you can’t get enough of the GrepBeat Godfather on the Friday Nooner—and how could you?—listen to him tell the Bronto Software story from origin to $200M exit and beyond as a guest on Hutchison’s Founder Shares podcast.

Because too much news is never enough.

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