ICYMI: TheFriday Nooner came out firing from its summer hiatus with guest David Baxter, the “Chief Pixel” at Triangle-based dev shop Big Pixel, which not coincidentally is the sponsor of the next 10 TFN episodes.
Thanks to all who came out for last Thursday's GrepBeat Happy Hour. It was great to see so many smiling faces! Speaking of, here are a few of them.
Exit Stories
Our Exit Stories podcast returns today for Season Four, which is sponsored by law firm Robinson Bradshaw and hosted as always by Jurassic Capital’s Kevin Mosley. Kevin welcomes Karl Rectanus, the co-founder and former CEO of Raleigh-based edtech LearnPlatform, which was acquired by Instructure late last year.
Read a few show highlights here, then listen (and subscribe!) to the episode here.
Global Champs
Four Triangle high school students—all from Cary’s Green Hope High School—won a global pitch contest held by TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) back in June after previously winning the TiE Carolinas regional event. Their pitch was “Drug Detectives,” a product that can detect the presence of Rohypnol or similar date rape drugs in a drink.
Read our full story on the winning team, TYE and TiE here.
Public Face
TBJ’s cover story this past week is a deep dive on Cary-based SAS, from its origins in the 1970s as the brainchild of a “sharp” NC State professor named Jim Goodnight through the long-cloistered private company’s public declaration that it’s preparing for a potential IPO in 2024. Some (like myself) still remain in the I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it camp when it comes to Jim actually pulling the trigger on an IPO, though I also didn’t think Elon Musk would follow through on buying Twitter/X/whatever—among many other bad predictions—so what do I know.
It's an interesting read, especially the sections about how SAS’s slowing revenue growth over the past few years would be a real liability in the public markets if it’s not turned around ASAP. On the other hand, if a material chunk of an IPO windfall is spread amongst SAS employees—who don’t currently own any equity—it could be a real shot in the arm for the Triangle tech ecosystem.
Tech Hub
A Triangle consortium has applied for formal federal recognition as a Tech Hub, which could potentially open up as much as $75M in grants if successful, TBJ reports. There will be plenty of competitors for the program—which was created by the federal CHIPS Act—including seven from North Carolina alone. The Tech Hubs program will appoint 20 cities in Phase One, then trimming to 5-10 in Stage 10. See TBJ for all the details.
BNC 125
Business North Carolina magazine has unveiled its annual BNC 125 list as part of its four-decade tradition of highlighting the state’s largest private companies. The best we can tell, BNC is ranking the list by estimated revenue, though it doesn’t release the estimate. Among the Triangle tech names: Cary’s Epic Games checks in at No. 2, the aforementioned SAS is No. 6, insightsoftware is No. 48, Prometheus Group is No. 71, JAGGAER is No. 84 and Pendo is No. 122. The No. 1 slot is held by Hendrick Automative Group.
Though we should point out that operating margins at software-driven companies are generally much, much higher than for car dealers, brick-and-mortar retailers, restaurant chains and many of the other types of companies that populate the list, such that (for instance) Epic Games is significantly more valuable than Hendrick despite having less revenue.
Spread The Love
Some Triangle startups that we’ve covered previously are getting some love in other outlets/forums. First, Business North Carolina has a feature story on Raleigh-based Green Places, which helps companies achieve their sustainability goals. We first profiled Green Places in July, 2021; honored it as part of our inaugural Startups To Watch class, and welcomed Founder and CEO Alex Lassiter on the Friday Noonerlast June.
Meanwhile Hutchison Law’s Trevor Schmidt—himself a Friday Nooner guest in 2021—recently welcomed CareYaya Founder and CEO Neal Shah on his Founder Shares podcast. Raleigh-based CareYaya is a platform that provides low-cost, high-quality, in-home elder care; we first profiled the startup in February, 2022.
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.
Extra Bit
Last Thursday we mentioned that Pendomonium released the schedule for the Oct. 17-19 conference that will held at the Martin Marietta Center in Raleigh. But we forgot to share something very important: that GrepBeat readers can access a $100 discount if they register with the code Drive100. One other big thing we overlooked: OutKast's Big Boi is headlining! Find all the info here.
Real talk: doing our best to serve you costs money. Businesses and organizations that would like to support our efforts should see our sponsorship opportunities here.
