Programming note: I will be on vacation next week on a Caribbean cruise, as is my wont. In my stead, Tuesday’s newsletter will be handled by our intern extraordinaire Claire Perry (grepbeat.com byline: Susannah Claire Perry), while Jackie will write Thursday’s newsletter. Please show them some love!
Before I soak up (sort of) the sun, we have another Friday Nooner tomorrow. Our guest will be Brent Wadas, a veteran of both the military and startups. Brent is the CEO of Durham-based BotBuilt, which is using cutting-edge robotics to build less expensive custom homes. (We profiled BotBuilt in December.) You can watch live at noon on LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook, or catch afterward on those same platforms or in its podcast form.
Going My Way?
Hey, folks who are taking road trips by car for personal or professional reasons: would you like to turn some unused trunk space into extra cash? Hey, people who need something shipped somewhere but aren’t on a tight time schedule: want to save some money on shipping? Well, you’re both in luck because Joe Driscoll is launching Krsor to connect those two groups. Fun fact: in Latin, “cursor” means “runner” or “messenger.” Another fun fact: Krsor is participating in the current cohort of the Launch Chapel Hill accelerator.
Last week, Durham-based Teamworks completed the acquisition of four startups that will add to its suite of products for collegiate and professional sports organizations in its ongoing quest to become the “Operating System For Sports.” The four are Smartabase, Retain, Grafted and NextPlay. But it’s the last one that we want to focus on first, because NextPlay is also based in Durham. Double Dookie (undergrad plus a Fuqua MBA) Kyle Mumma founded NextPlay in 2018 to help student-athletes better transition to the post-college world. We first profiled the startup in November, 2019.
It's no surprise that Teamworks, led by former Duke football player Zach Maurides, would be the company that saw the most value in NextPlay. Teamworks will combine NextPlay’s offering with that of Grafted, another alumni engagement platform, and rebrand it as Teamworks Communities. Kyle—the son of longtime Triangle venture investor Mitch Mumma—will join Teamworks as part of the acquisition. In fact, Kyle was the one who gave us the heads up. And we’re confident that another big reason he’s excited to join the Teamworks crew is because their office is directly across the street from GrepBeat World HQ.
Durham-based adtech Adwerx has named a new CEO. It’s digital advertising vet Michael Sullivan, who will be commuting from New York. (Can’t he just move here like the rest of us New Yorkers?) Michael has been an operating partner for multiple private equity firms and a three-time CEO. He takes over for interim CEO (and formerDownload subject) Mike Doernberg, who had stepped in when Adwerx Founder and former CEO Jed Carlson (a former Meet... Q&A subject) stepped down last year for personal reasons. Adwerx had originally spun out of eMinor, which Mike still runs as a sort of startup incubator.
We’re guessing that the new CEO is a car guy given the elaborate car metaphor he offered to Triangle Inno. To wit: Adwerx is like a “sports car with a great engine” that’s only getting 15-20 miles to the gallon in its bread-and-butter verticals of real estate and mortgages. His goal, then, is to improve the gas mileage so it can go further on a tank of fuel, while keeping the engine powerful and the chassis sleek. But what do I know about cars, I drive a 2001 Acura.
Here’s the Triangle Inno story, and here’s a release from Adwerx.
Last To Know
I’m a little hurt that the GrepBeat Godfather didn’t even mention to me that he’d talked extensively to Lauren Ohnesorge for a Triangle Inno story that came out yesterday. Just when you think you know a guy. Though in fairness, I did know that Joe and Kevin Mosley have been raising a fund at Jurassic Capital in the neighborhood of $30M to invest in growth-stage B2B SaaS startups in the Southeast with at least $1M of annual revenue. It looks like the reason Lauren reached out is because an SEC filing from Jurassic went public on Jan. 11 noting that the firm had raised another $7.9M for a total of $28.3M.
Here’s the Triangle Inno story. Perhaps Jackie and I will hold Joe’s feet to the fire during tomorrow’s Friday Nooner since he obviously won’t volunteer anything.
Slow Roll
Since it acquired the former Cary Towne Center mall in late 2020 for $95M to build a new company HQ, Cary’s Epic Games has publicly said that it would like to move in during 2024. As TBJ reports, given the slow (glacial?) pace of the would-be renovation, that’s looking increasingly unlikely. That’s the tl:dr; you can find the full story here.
Another Hit
We’re starting to think that when publicly traded cloud telecom company Avaya moved its official HQ from Silicon Valley to Durham early in the pandemic in a cost-cutting move, it knew it was in trouble. The hits keep on coming for the thisclose-to-bankruptcy firm. It recently announced it’s cutting jobs in Europe, which follows layoffs in the U.S. See TBJ for more.
Moving Ahead
Wolfspeed is full speed (sorry) ahead with the $5B manufacturing facility it’s building in Chatham County, which will be the largest silicon carbide semiconductor factory in the world when it’s completed. (It will knock Wolfspeed’s facility in Mohawk Valley, New York, off the top spot.) TechWire reports that Wolfspeed has begun an official search for suppliers with a series of events that kicked off yesterday. The first phase of the plant is expected to open next year at a cost of $1.3B.
Please Connect
Duke’s BIG IDEAs Lab is partnering with California-based Evidation on a partnership with the goal of increasing racial diversity and representation in digital health studies. TechWire has more about it here.
We also humbly suggest that BIG IDEAs and/or Evidation reach out to RTP-based CliniSpan Health and its CEO Dezbee McDaniel. CliniSpan’s mission is to increase racial diversity in clinical trials. We first profiled them in March, 2022, we picked Dezbee as the top presenter at CED’s 2022 Venture Connect summit and we later tabbed CliniSpan in our 2022 Startups To Watch list. You should all talk!
Build Great Software
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