Both Joe and Chantal are back for this week’s episode of The Friday Nooner. The trio talked about CED’s 2022 Venture Connect, the big-money exit by Raleigh’s Global Data Consortium, and the first Black woman to be confirmed on the Supreme Court (Ketanji Brown Jackson, who went to Chantal’s high school in Miami).
Our featured guest is serial entrepreneur Scot Wingo. He is the founder of RTP-based Spiffy, an on-demand, mobile car care service for individuals and car fleets nationwide. It is eco-friendly and provides services like washes, detailing, oil changes, tire rotations, and more.
Here are some highlights:
- The GrepBeat team attended CED’s 2022 Venture Connect summit yesterday at Cisco’s campus in RTP. (Here’s our highlights story from this morning.) This was CED’s first in-person summit in three years. Several tech pitches were happening simultaneously, but luckily, we wrote about most of the startups that presented beforehand.
- Speaking of conferences, our inaugural Grep-a-palooza—focused on early-stage tech startups in the Triangle—will be held on June 9 at the Durham Convention Center. The event includes keynote speakers, relevant panel discussions, networking opportunities, and more. We hope to see you there! [And make sure you’re there by buying a ticket.]
- Pete, Joe and Chantal talked about the recent acquisition of black-led Raleigh startup Global Data Consortium (GDC) by the UK-based London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Led by Co-Founders Bill Spruill (CEO) and Charles Gaddy, the global identification verification platform scored an exit that we believe is worth several hundred million dollars, though the exact amount has not been disclosed yet. (Sadly.)
- Triangle serial entrepreneur Scot Wingo revealed the reasoning behind the single ‘t’ in his name—long story short, his dad was a hippie. (There are many Scott Wingos out there, but only one Scot Wingo.) Scot has launched four companies and exited three, which include Stingray Software, AuctionRover and ChannelAdvisor—which is still going strong as a publicly traded company based in Morrisville. He is also the creator of the Triangle Tweener List of tech startups that aren’t too small (at least $1M in revenue or 10 employees) but have fewer than 85 employees. He’s now added to his Tweener-verse the Tweener Fund, a rolling fund he manages to make angel investments in Tweener-esque startups. During the show, Scot talks about his experience with Spiffy, choosing a penguin to be the startup’s mascot, and gives advice to new entrepreneurs.
Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or on Facebook here.
Or on YouTube:
Or listen to the podcast version:
