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ChickTech RDU

It’s been almost seven years since a group of volunteers associated with Red Hat launched ChickTech Raleigh-Durham, a chapter of the 10-year old national organization ChickTech that aspires to bring gender equity to tech. There’s plenty of work to do—despite earning more college degrees overall than men, women only earn 22% of engineering degrees, 21% of physics degrees and 20% of computer science degrees. A local team led by Co-Directors Kelly Curtin and Rima Chakravarty are doing their best to change those numbers, especially by reaching out to female and nonbinary students in middle school and high school with STEM education.
 
Read our full story on ChickTech RDU here.

Facts Are Facts

It’s official: the Triangle Tweener Fund > Andreessen Horowitz. Don’t take out word for it; we’re simply quoting Crunchbase. OK, a little context. It turns out that Crunchbase compiles a monthly feature on the most active investors in U.S.-based companies. In January, the most-active investor (by number of deals) was Y Combinator—it invests in many of the startups it accepts in its famed accelerator—with 17 deals. No. 2? None other than the Triangle Tweener Fund, led by Scot Wingo and Robbie Allen.
 
Next up at No. 3? That’s right—Andreessen Horowitz with nine deals. O.K., we’re pretty sure that Andreessen Horowitz’s average check size was many multiples higher than the Tweener Fund’s ~$50K. But that’s 10 actual Triangle startups cashing real checks in a single month in what Scot has described as a sort of “index fund” of local startups. And it never hurts for the Triangle to get some national publicity, including a name-check in the Crunchbase headline on par with Y Combinator.

Charged Up

The Triangle can put another arrow in the quiver of its case to be considered a hub for electric vehicle (EV) tech with the news that Finnish-HQ’d Kempower will invest $41.2M into a new plant in Durham to manufacture EV charging stations. You’ll recall of course that VinFast has pledged to build a $4B facility to build EVs in Chatham County, which it insists won’t be affected by its recent layoffs elsewhere in North America. The Triad also has a big project in the works with Toyota planning an electric battery manufacturing plant in Randolph County.
 
Kempower says that production at the new Durham plant is expected to begin in 2023, which is [checks notes] this year. So no time to waste! See the N&O, TechWire and TBJ for more.

Gobbling Up

Raleigh-based PE-backed software unicorn insightsoftware has made another acquisition, which it's done 20+ times since it was formed four years ago in a private equity merger/roll-up. This time it’s Power ON, which focuses on Microsoft Power BI. (“BI” stands for Business Intelligence, and the Microsoft Power Platform is a line of business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity software applications. The more you know!) See TechWire for more.

CEO Changes

Doug Leupen, the founder of Raleigh-based software company Entrinsik—which I just now realized is a play on the word “intrinsic”—is stepping down as CEO to hand the reins over to his son, Brad Leupen, who has been Entrinsik’s CTO since he joined the company in 1997. Doug will stay on as chairman of the board. The company makes software for higher education organizations especially for business intelligence (yes, our old friend BI) and course registration management. Doug founded Entrinsik in 1984. TechWire has the story.
 
In other CEO news, Cary-based healtech startup Infina Connect named a new acting CEO, Joe Francis, who had been the company’s VP of Sales. Joe replaces Sin Tong, who is stepping aside. Infina Connect makes software for doctors to refer patients to specialists, diagnostic and imaging services, surgeons and the like. See TechWire for more.

Sitter App

Atlanta-based babysitter platform Wyndy is expanding its footprint to the Triangle. The venture-back startup led by CEO Missy Polhemus aims to simplify the process of sourcing, vetting, booking and paying babysitters who attend local colleges. See Triangle Inno for more. BTW our guess is that Wyndy is named after Wendy from Peter Pan, and if it isn’t, it ought to be.

Startups <==> Duke

Are you a startup or small business interested in recruiting Duke students? Then mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 1, for the 10^th annual StartupConnect Networking Fair. Before that you can also take advantage of a virtual workshop called StartupConnect for Employers: Finding and Managing Interns. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 21, from 11 a.m.-noon.

Crowdfunding Panel

Folks interested in learning more about crowdfunding—and what early-stage startup founder or aspiring founder doesn’t want tips on raising cash?—might want to check out a panel discussion sponsored by Fourscore Business Law next Wednesday, Feb. 15, from 3-5 p.m. at Raleigh’s Capital Club.

The panel will be moderated by Incolo’s Will McGuire and features Offline’s David Shaner, FemHealth Insights’ Brittany Barreto and Fourscore’s Peter Singh. (The links are to GrepBeat stories about the first three. Sorry, Peter, I’m sure we’ll write about you on grepbeat.com someday.) You can register here. Tickets are $10 and include drinks and light appetizers.

Build Great Software

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