The latest guest on the Friday Nooner was Tina Tang, the CEO of Durham-based Bristles, which is also the recipient of the most recent investment by our Colopy Ventures sister company, Primordial. (Late correction: as you’ll see below in Item No. 4 as of this morning, it’s now the second-most-recent.) You also won’t want to miss Pete parading all his new swag from the ForeverGrep store, including the famed (infamous?) "Pete" tote bag.
Grep-a-palooza
Not sure if we’ve ever mentioned it, but we’ve got a little event called Grep-a-palooza coming up on Thursday at the Durham Convention Center. Yes, JUST TWO DAYS AWAY! Things kick off with coffee and networking at 8:30 a.m., with the programming starting at 9:10 a.m. See the full agenda here with its 30-ish speakers and panelists, including three windows in which you’ll be able to choose between two simultaneous panels. We’ll all repair to Bull McCabe’s a few hundred yards away for an after-party that kicks off at 4 p.m. Pro tip: the after-party is open to all, though only attendees will receive drink tickets.
You can still buy Grep-a-palooza tickets through the day of the event, including at the door. Tickets are $199 for Startup Founders and Employees and $299 for Everyone Else, while fulltime students (including 2023 grads) can take advantage of the $99 Student Rate. We hope to see you there on Thursday! One final note: Thursday’s newsletter will be an abbreviated affair that will be sent LIVE from Grep-a-palooza.
The Download
This week’sDownload Q&A is with Jeff Welch, the Director of New Ventures at Duke’s Office for Translation and Commercialization. (He’s also registered for Grep-a-palooza.) In short, Jeff helps lead efforts to commercialize tech developed by Duke professors, researchers and students, often in the form of new startups. He also shares my favorite coffee/meeting spot. Sorry, no spoilers, you’ll need to read the Q&A. Or at least click on it and skim.
Looks Tasty
It’s not easy to be an ugly sweet potato. Most such taters with “cosmetic defects” that will make shoppers turn up their nose end up being tossed out, contributing to food waste. But some sorry-looking spuds are finding a very productive after-life as tasty chips from Apex-based food startup Southern Snacks, led by serial entrepreneur Liliana Cantrell. The chips are currently available online at the Southern Snacks site plus on Amazon and Walmart.com. Southern Snacks is one of the recent recipients of NC IDEA’s $10K MICRO grants.
As we noted at the top, Primordial has made its fourth investment—a seed-stage check to Raleigh-based TSV Analytics, which helps social media marketers better understand their audience with predictive analytics and actionable insights. We first profiled the startup and its co-founders Trevor Ferree and Aidan McCarthy last March, and we later wrote about the recent NC State grads pitching at the Demo Day that capped last summer’s NC State Andrews Launch Accelerator. TSV Analytics also received a $10K MICRO grant from NC IDEA. For more info, check out Primordial’s release on the investment.
Flight Navigators
Yesterday’s TechWire shared a story from earlier this month in Business North Carolina magazine on the pitch practice sessions offered at RTP’s First Flight Venture Center. (First Flight’s president Krista Covey has been both a Friday Nooner guest and a Download Q&A subject.) The story focuses on experienced business pros that First Flight dubs “navigators” giving pitch feedback to a pair of entrepreneurs building an AI-powered software tool for technicians servicing solar installations. It’s an interesting, in-depth read.
Devilish Details
Wolfspeed is jockeying with the federal government in an attempt to secure financial backing from the CHIPS Act to help fund its planned $5B silicon carbide semiconductor factory in Chatham County. The intent of the legislation was in part to back projects like Wolfspeed’s to increase domestic semiconductor production and decrease reliance on China. But according to a letter that Wolfspeed’s general counsel sent to the IRS and Treasury Departments on May 9—TBJ obtained a copy—the Chatham County project might not qualify for federal $$$ unless the language of the bill is tweaked.
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