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Happy Tuesday!

Join us on Thursday (5-7 p.m.) for the first GrepBeat Happy Hour of 2023 at Bull McCabe’s in downtown Durham. Your first round will be courtesy of our sponsor, Hutchison law firm. I’ll also bake an Irish sodabread in honor of St. Patrick’s Day Eve. Please register here so we can plan accordingly.
 
ICYMI: Our latest Friday Nooner guest was Ryan Perlowin, the General Partner of Chapel Hill-based syndicate investor Jemison Alexander, which invests in early-stage startups led by female founders. You should also check out Jackie’s latest Week in 90 Seconds.
 


For Starters

On this week’s episode of our For Starters podcast—sponsored by Robinson Bradshaw—host Anil Chawla welcomes Jenny Maze, the Co-Founder (with her husband Jeff) and CEO of Chapel Hill-based healthtech startup Quinsite. (We first profiled Quinsite in June, 2021, and later wrote about its $2.5M funding round in March 2022.) Jenny traces through her professional journey starting out as a nurse, dealing with “imposter syndrome” as a first-time startup founder, and how Quinsite found product-market fit.
 
Read some show highlights here, then listen (and subscribe to!) the episode here. FYI there is just one episode left in Season 2, but you can catch up whenever you like if you download the show on your favorite podcast app.


 


Perfect Match

Cayley Pater and Andy Ives “met cute” 18 years ago when they were freshmen at UNC attending a meeting of the Fair Trade Club. The meeting would shape their lives in more ways than one. Today the married couple are the founders of Carrboro-based Made Trade, an ecommerce startup platform that sells ethically sourced goods such as bedding, furniture, clothing, accessories and gifts. Made Trade is one of the startups that will pitch at CED’s Venture Connect summit on March 29-30 in RTP. (GrepBeat will be there, and we hope you will be too!)
 
Read our full story on Made Trade here.


 


SVB Fallout

The tech world locally and beyond was riled over the past week by the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and then Signature Bank, both of which (especially SVB) catered to startups and VCs. Actually it’s been less than a week since the drama seemed to arise out of nowhere, though it probably seemed more like a year if you or your portfolio companies had money deposited at the banks—especially above the $250K level that is traditionally insured by the FDIC.
 
The good news is that for the moment at least, the crisis has stabilized. The FDIC took over SVB and Signature and then announced over the weekend that it will make all depositers whole, even above the $250K level. The latter in particular helped to calm fears of startups being unable to make payroll and going out of business, among other real-world concerns that could have reverberated through the economy.
 
It's still an uneasy time to be a regional bank, especially one with a lot of exposure to tech startups—like PacWest, which acquired Durham-based venture bank Square1. But startups, VC funds and everyone else can feel fairly secure that the money they have deposited in those banks is safe, which should prevent the kind of classic bank run that swamped SVB out of existence less than 48 hours after it first revealed that it had supposedly solved its liquidity crisis and said that nobody should panic. Oops!
 
Here are some local stories with more background: 'A crisis of confidence': Triangle companies feel effects of bank collapses (WRAL); SVB fallout: Triangle VCs, entrepreneurs signal relief as feds move to protect depositors (Triangle Inno); After SVB collapse, Triangle banks with Square 1 ties work to mitigate concerns (TBJ); Deposit insurance cap may be a 'dead letter' as feds intervene in Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank (TBJ).


 


VinFast Delay

VinFast’s best-laid plans to start rolling out new electric vehicles from a new $4B Chatham County factory in the summer of 2024 have now officially been trimmed as being overly ambitious. Last Friday, VinFast conceded in a regulatory filing that it’s now targeting 2025 for the start of production. Of course there’s still a lot that needs to happen between now and then including, well, building a factory. Here’s more info from TechWire and TBJ.


 


Legal Blotter

A TBJ article caught our eye on Friday—Raleigh-based software unicorn Prometheus Group has filed its third suit in six months against former employees that it alleges have violated non-compete clauses with their new employers. What’s the saying? Right: Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern.
 
I get that employers have a legitimate interest in protecting trade secrets and other confidential information in-house, and I have no inside information on the merits of these three specific cases. But personally, it wouldn’t give me the warm fuzzies about my employer to see that it’s so litigious against former employees.


 


Forward Momentum

Railinc is teaming with Durham-based Momentum to sponsor three candidates for Momentum’s next immersive full stack engineering course. Railinc will not only sponsor the candidates’ tuition and in-program monthly stipends, but it will hire them after they complete the program. Cary-based Railinc is a tech company that serves the rail industry.
 
Applications are due this Thursday (enter “Railinc” in the referral box) and please submit your resume to apply@momentumlearn.com. The course runs from April 10-August 4.


 


Teaming Up

Raleigh-based Relay has partnered with Atlanta-based Compass One Healthcare to bring its communications tools (think next-gen walkie-talkies) and data collection software to hospitals and health systems nationwide. Relay’s primary markets have thus far been in hospitality, such as in large hotels or stadiums/arenas, but big hospitals and sprawling health clinics face similar challenges of keeping employees communicating across a large physical space. See here for more info.
 

 


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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