The latest Friday Noonerfeatured guest Justin Wright-Eakes, the Founder and Managing Partner of Raleigh-based venture capital firm Oval Park Capital, getting repeatedly chased off topic by the GrepBeat Godfather’s odd obsession with ducks. Seriously, that really happened. You should also check out Jackie’s latest The Week in 90 Seconds.
The Download
This week’s edition spotlights the youngest-ever Download subject, 20-year-old Will Clemente. A Fuquay-Varina native, Will broke through as a Twitter thought leader on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency issues as a 19-year-old sophomore at ECU. Now he has nearly 700,000 followers and has dropped out of ECU to co-found Reflexivity Research, which covers the digital assets space. One good way to tell that Will is Generation Z: he says he has literally nothing in his pockets except “a little bit of lint.”
Season 2 of For Starters (sponsored by Robinson Bradshaw) rolls on with host Anil Chawla sitting down with Ricci Wolman, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based Written Word Media, to talk product-market fit. GrepBeat readers should recognize Ricci from her Download Q&A, her Friday Nooner guest spot and/or her participation in a Grep-a-palooza panel last June. (Which reminds me: mark your calendars for Grep-a-palooza 2 on June 1!) But you haven’t heard the full Written Word Media story—it’s a platform to help self-published authors promote their books—told in this detail.
Read some show highlights here, then listen (and subscribe to!) the episode here.
Late Bloomer
Roger Deweyfounded Raleigh-based Able Device in 2010 and went through the late, great Startup Factory in Durham in 2012, but his ideas for how to make mobile communications more seamless across devices were ahead of their time. Later the explosion of connected IoT devices on everything from credit cards to our cars made the ground more fertile, and the startup eventually developed a software applet called SIMbae that turns your basic SIM card into an independent processor.
Some big recent contracts—including one with the electric motorcycle division of Harley Davidson—followed and now Able Device is on a definite growth path. Read our full story on Roger’s stick-to-it-tive-ness here.
Growth Play
Durham-based meatless food startup Myodenovo has reportedly raised $105K from two investors in a round that could grow as large as $2M. One of the investors is Sustainable Food Ventures, which is run by former Friday Nooner guestRyan Bethencourt and his wife, Mariliis Holm. Myodenovo “grows” meat, which I find especially impressive given I’m not even trusted to keep the Colopy Ventures plants alive if others are on vacation—and with good reason. See TechWire for more info.
Wi$dom Of Crowds
We had mentioned last Wednesday’s panel in Raleigh on crowdfunding sponsored by Fourscore Business Law ahead of time. Well, the N&O’s Brian Gordon attended and today he’s shared his report on the event as well as a deeper dive on the growth of crowdfunding in the state and beyond.
You should especially note the comments by panelist David Shaner, the CEO of Raleigh-based Offline, which raised $2M via crowdfunding for its subscriber-only restaurant club. And we’re not saying that just because David is this week’s guest on The Friday Nooner, which you can catch on LinkedIn, YouTube or Facebook, or in its podcast form. Though we’ll concede that it was a factor.
AI Skills
Google is providing $125K in funding to support teacher development in AI skills at the North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics in Durham. The dollars will go to the Ryden Program for Innovation and Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, which was established by a 2018 gift by Carl Ryden, the CEO of Charlotte-based fintech PrecisionLender and an NCSSM alum. Google is establishing a tech hub in Durham. See TechWire for more.
Beloved Community
Keith Daniel and Tom Droege—the pair behind Durham-based Resilient Ventures, which invests in Black-led startups—are leading a four-session Zoom webinar (90 minutes each session) on entrepreneurship and economic justice. The content is based in part on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s goal of the Beloved Community, with economic and social justice as the twin pillars. Dr. King memorably discussed his Beloved Community concept in a 1960 speech in Raleigh.
Participants can choose from one of three day/time slots for weekly sessions starting the week of April 11, with new sessions rolled out each week for four weeks. Keith and Daniel believe the content will be of particular interest to business leaders and anyone involved with the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The cost is $75 for the full series. You can find more info and register here.
Project Life
TBJ has begun an interesting columnist series that it’s calling Project Life, which will focus on executive health and worker wellness. Two of the four columnists will be quite familiar to GrepBeat readers: Brooks Bell—the founder of Brooks Bell Inc. and everyone’s favorite colonoscopy proponent—and Jed Carlson, the Founder and former CEO of Durham-based adtech Adwerx. Brooks’ column is up first and she pulls no punches in sharing the lessons she has learned after getting blindsided with a diagnosis of colon cancer in late 2018. It’s worth a read.
Also in TBJ: they profile Raleigh-based startup Flux Hybrids as part of their Earth + Equity series. Flux Hybrids is a former Greppy Award winner for its conversion kits to turn gasoline-powered cars into hybrids.
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.
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