If you're a Duke fan, I (as a Tar Heel) can empathize with how you all must be feeling post-Saturday and post-White Lotus, though the latter wasn't all too bad for y'all in the end (university officials may disagree).
But it's a new week! Keep your heads up, fight those royal blues, and get happy by swinging by our especially Happy Hour later today at Bull McCabe's, starting at 5pm right after Raleigh-Durham Startup Week programming ends. Register ahead of time to get that first drink free—courtesy of our sponsor Hutchison Law Firm—and celebrate yourself and fellow entrepreneurs under Carolina Blue skies.
Life sciences companies can spend weeks on a single literature review, working with clunky legacy software to compile information and track citations. Three Duke University students wanted to heal this problem.
Their startup Helian (get it?!) is an AI-powered literature review tool for the life sciences community. The tool makes the review process more efficient—and does so in a way that is "completely free of any risk" of the data hallucination that can occur with AI (and which in this field could cost lives).
Read our latest feature on the healing startup, who is also a Melissa & Doug cohort member. If you want to meet them in person, they and their fellow cohort members will be presenting their startups at this Thursday's Duke Startup Showcase.
SAS Passes
For years, SAS (among other companies like Pendo) has been teasing the idea of bringing about an initial public offering.
But as markets have tumbled in the wake of sweeping global tariffs by President Donald Trump, the IPO window has been forced shut, which forces these itching-to-go-public companies to take a further step back from the idea. TBJ has the skinny on the next steps for SAS and Pendo, as well as some insight from an IPO expert.
QuikAcquire
Out of the 10 student-led startups coming out of this year's Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurship Program, two have already been acquired: Styl AI last December and now, as of four days ago, QuikCal, a project management platform designed to improve job site efficiency and accountability in the construction sector.
What began as a first-year design project has now been acquired by Boston-based MOCA Systems, which provides "the industry-leading construction planning platform." Read more about this acquisition, and congratulations to another win from Duke STUDENT entrepreneurs! Yay students! I'm two years out of college but I still root for students, YEAHH!!!
No Question Here
In more winning news for startups that start with a "Q," the team from Raleigh-based Queriousannounced that they have won the Startup Alley Pitch Competition at the ABA TechShow for "the most innovative legal tech startup of the year."
According to the TechShow's pitch competition page, Querious won a package of marketing and advertising prizes, which can be critical and important to a startup's growth and recognition (according to In The Soup sponsor, Milan Public Relations). If you're interested in learning why Querious is so innovative, read our past feature on them here.
Beast Bested?
In not-so-tech news, but still relevant our regional business sector, TBJ reports that YouTube sensation and business mogul MrBeast has sued an ex-employee for allegedly stealing confidential information and installing hidden cameras at the company offices.
According to the lawsuit, former employee Leroy Nabors, who worked for Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) for two years, is accused of having “exfiltrated thousands of confidential Beast documents,” from financial information to an investment cap table. Donaldson claims that if Nabors does obtain those files, it could cause "serious harm" to his business.
Last One Standing
In the true madness of March (which for some reason ends in April, unbeknownst to a non-sports junkie like myself), the local Tweener Madness competition is finally wrapping up its cutthroat pitch bracket—shortly after this newsletter hits your inboxes.
Today's livestream will bring forth the two local startups who have made it to the Championship: Raleigh-based InviteJet and Chapel Hill-based ZW LLC. If you want to finalize your picks for this bracket, get the stats from each company before they announce the champion (and winner of $25K) and read our features on InviteJet and ZW.
AI In Books
Last Friday, our smaller-than-usual Book Club met up to discuss “Nexus” by Yuval Noah Harari, a book that is, truly, about information networks. That is to say, it is less concerned with the source, nature, or even necessarily the accuracy of information, but rather focuses on how humans share information.
Notable quotes include: "Silicon chips can create spies that never sleep, financiers that never forget, and despots that never die," and "That's like, racism against machines." Okay, that last one is actually from a new movie called "Y2K," but I'm sure Harari alluded to this point somewhere.
Read our full recap on the book that you might have missed, and if you're wanting to commit to that New Year's resolution of reading more, consider joining our book club. (We're tackling "The Future" by Naomi Alderman next, and meeting to talk about it on May 16th.)
RDSW ITS EP
No, those aren't just random letters or a string of code (that are just letters to me, but what do I know?!). If you're still debating about whether or not to trek out to Durham or Raleigh for this week-long, FREE event, that is RDSW—created to celebrate our vibrant tech entrepreneurial ecosystems—then tune in to last week's In The Soup episode.
Hosts Jenn Summe and Melissa Crosby (who are partnering with Raleigh-Durham Startup Week with their group LiLa) break down the importance of an event like RDSW. And to sweeten the need a little further, they've brought on RDSW organizer Haley Huie and local entrepreneur Charlotte Louis, who attended and presented at last year's event.
Listen here, and subscribe to The GrepBeat Podcast on wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
