In honor of today being 5/9, we’re offering a special 59% off deal for June 1’s Grep-a-palooza 2 for the first three people to take advantage. First come, first served. Use the Promo Code “5/9SPECIAL” on Eventbrite. Good luck, and we’ll see you there!
The latest Friday Noonerfeatured guest James Avery, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based Kevel. Don’t miss the first-ever beer cracked open on-air in show history.
Disruptor 50
Congrats to Durham-based Phononic for making CNBC’s annual Disruptor 50 list of private companies that are “chasing some of the market’s biggest opportunities.” CNBC first named Phononic to the list in 2019 for its breakthrough cooling technology that’s much more efficient and environmentally friendly than legacy solutions, and this is Phononic’s third time on the list total. This year CNBC's profile focused on the startup’s Actively Cooled Tote (ACT), a mobile refrigerator about the size of a small cooler that is taking on traditional “reefers”—refrigerated containers, often as large as an entire truck, used to transport cold goods.
It's great pub for Phononic and the Triangle tech community, though frankly we’re surprised that CNBC didn’t even mention that CEO Tony Atti will be a panelist at Grep-a-palooza 2.
Closing Shop
Shutterfly is closing down Spoonflower’s Durham production facility two years after it acquired Spoonflower for $225M. The move impacts 108 employees, thought they will be “eligible for rehire by Shutterfly and its affiliated companies,” said the company in an official notice to the state. Spoonflower moved into the 110,000-square-foot space in 2021, with the production facility making custom fabrics, wallpaper and other home products. Shutterfly acquired Spoonflower later that year.
The move is a reminder that as much as we at GrepBeat tend to (rightly) celebrate acquisitions of Triangle startups, one undeniable reality is that once a new company or PE firm owns a majority interest, what they say goes. Back in 2021 Shutterfly said all the right things about wanting to not just stay in the Triangle but expand here, but obviously management has changed its mind, at least for now. See TBJ and TechWire for more.
Data Play
Raleigh-based data analytics and AI startup Data Crunch has been acquired by Winston Salem-based advertising firm The Variable. Data Crunch was founded in 2019 by Curtis Seare and Ryan Noakes and has 20 employees, several in Raleigh and the rest around the country and world as it began as an all-remote organization. The deal seems less about Data Crunch’s tech helping The Variable make cooler ads than that it could help the agency offer additional data- and AI-driven services for its clients. See Triangle Inno for more.
Quickie Updates
Here are some quick updates on Triangle startups that we’ve previously profiled: 1) CareYaya and CliniSpan Health were two of the five winners of the Health Equity Innovation Challenge. They emerged from the organization’s Pitch Day on April 29 at the Cabarrus Center in Concord. CareYaya uses students in nursing and related fields to provide in-home caregiving services at an affordable rate, while CliniSpan (a 2022 Startups to Watch honoree) increases the participation of people of color in clinical trials.
3) Raleigh-based cybersecurity and robotics startup Secmation, which we first profiled in March, 2021, with another story last August when it was awarded a $1.8M contract with the Air Force, has released a new product called the AutonomyLock. It’s a rapid development tool enabling autonomous systems developers to accelerate cybersecurity certification processes.
Check Writers
We’re suckers for anyone asking, “Want $50K from Joe Colopy?” OK, maybe we cut out some context. The full headline of the Triangle Inno story is: “Want $50K from Joe Colopy's new initiative? Here's who pre-seed startups should talk to.” And the person they should talk to isn’t Joe but Jenn Summe, who runs the day-to-day operations of Primordial, which (as we’ve discussed) is the new early-stage investing arm of Colopy Ventures.
Hey startups, what’s even better than a check from an investor? A grant of free money! NC IDEA is by far the most active player in that space in North Carolina, but Triangle Inno also has this national list of grant programs that could be worth a skim to see if they might fit.
Strong Core
Triangle Inno recently profiled Cary-based startup Core Ai, which was recently picked as one of five startups—and the only one from North Carolina—for the inaugural Black Founder Accelerator program. The accelerator is a partnership between Northwestern Mutual and gener8tor and could potentially lead to a $100K investment. Core Ai is a digital coaching platform that provides curated insights to help business leaders engage with their teams. It’s led by CEO Ed Ross.
Real World
Cary-based Brightly Software (formerly Dude Solutions) is the subject of the latest entry in TBJ’s Earth + Equity series. The story focuses on Brightly—which makes facilities management software for industry verticals such as school systems, municipalities and commercial real estate groups—helping those customers meet their goals of reducing energy use for financial and environmental/sustainability reasons. Because, in the real world, there is plenty of overlap in (for instance) wanting to reduce the use of fossil fuels to save money and save the planet. It doesn't have to be an either/or; more often it's a both/and.
Meanwhile, in Raleigh’s State Capitol, the GOP supermajority is rolling out bills that propose to prevent the state pension fund from so-called “ESG investing,” with “ESG” an acronym for environmental, social and governance. (Here’s an N&O story.) Such (primarily) Republican-backed legislation—proposed and enacted—is popping up across the country. IMO such bills are a “solution” in search of a problem that doesn’t actually exist. Maybe the politicians could spend some time talking with for-profit enterprises like Brightly.
What's In A Name?
TriangleInno has a fun story on four Triangle women who have named companies after themselves. Two of the four will be familiar to GrepBeat readers: Brooks Belland former “Where’s Pete?” winner (and IIRC a Happy Hour trivia winner) Christina Marie Noel.
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