GrepBeat hosted its first Happy Hour last night—since returning from the summer hiatus—at Bull McCabe’s in downtown Durham. The first round of drinks was picked up by our courteous sponsor, the American Underground (AU), which also just wrapped its first day of the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology (FCAT) Fellowship.
The AU partnered with FCAT to bring this fellowship to the Triangle with the aim of accelerating startups’ growth through curated programming, resources, mentorship and access to a thriving startup community. And what better way to introduce their newest cohort of 15 to this community than through a GrepBeat Happy Hour?! [Heads up! We’ve already featured a few of the startups in the cohort, including Celestic, Unplex, Elroi, Scale Social and Baby Bumps.]
Tim Scales, the Executive Director of the AU, announced that the startups would be participating in the in-person programs of fellowship for 10 weeks and then continue with their fellowship for the next 12 months. He said that he is “excited to see how we as a community, the AU, FCAT and the broader Triangle community can support the growth of their startups.” He then introduced Aaron Smith, the Head of Innovation Ecosystem at FCAT.
“There’s lots of thanks to put around today, but our thanks actually go to all of you,” Smith said to the crowd. “You made this possible. You’re all part of the founder community here and we’re very, very excited to be part of this with you.”
Smith said that he hopes that the first day of the FCAT fellowship is one of “many, many, many” years of Fidelity playing a role in the Triangle community. On behalf of Fidelity, he said they hope to be a catalyst and an accelerator to building new and cool things out of the Triangle.
Here are some pics from last night. It was so great to see so many familiar and new smiling faces. Hope to see them all and more again at our next Happy Hour (stay tuned)!
