NEW invites the investors of North Carolina to “Come out to the Coast” for the third annual installment of the INVESTOR BUZZ IN at the Beach. Jim Roberts recaps the event.
Last Friday, the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW) held our third annual Wilmington NC INVESTOR BUZZ IN at the Beach. This was in celebration of our 10-Year Anniversary building and growing the startup ecosystem at the coast of North Carolina. (Not Delaware.)
Our “INVESTOR BUZZ IN” title is a play on the traditional “INVESTOR FLY IN” events that larger cities hold on an annual basis. We know no one is flying into Wilmington—yet—but we did have 285 people “buzz in” from 15 different states for this event.
As an independent nonprofit at the coast, NEW has difficulty raising the kinds of resources required to put on a fancy shindig to impress investors; even after 10 successful years, NEW struggles to find sustainable sponsorship like institutional nonprofits connected to bigger organizations. (Yet we still get results, which those less familiar with NEW can learn about in this animated explainer.)
With no fancy shindig, we went the opposite direction, befitting “Don’t Tread on Me,” pirate style at the coast. (No shock that Wilmington is the only city in the world with a meat-eating plant, the Venus Flytrap, as its mascot. And yes, it’s part of our logo at NEW…. And yes, I was gifted two bottles of bourbon on stage at the event and another on Saturday at NEW’s 10-Year Anniversary party held at End of Days Distillery… where we celebrated the Preakness Stakes horse race in our spring fashion with delicious crab cakes and “Black Eyed Susie” drinks.)
We had a stripped-down, authentic entrepreneur and investor conference that was 100% FREE to attend—from parking, to tickets, to coffee, lunch, and the after party. In the land of bootstrapped entrepreneurs, that’s a rare distinction compared to conferences in the region that charge $1K or more.
The investors did a “Reverse Pitch” off the plank
All regional investors of note joined the BUZZ IN as speakers and panelists. The program started with representatives from three regional venture capital funds that have been present for more than a year: Jenn Summe of Primordial, Juan Carlos Pacheco of IDEA Fund Partners, and Robbie Hardy of xElle Ventures. They were asked to give a “reverse pitch” so that local entrepreneurs could learn what investors are looking for in a startup.
I begged the leaders of NC INNOVATION to repeat themselves several times when discussing the new $500 million fund meant for investment in university-based labs that could produce more research, which could in turn produce more startups in the region. We also had them talk about the process of investing in the Wang Lab at UNC Wilmington—founders of startup DuraVax. (NC INNOVATION also recently announced a second investment in UNCW labs addressing neck injuries.)
Highlighting two vertical industries taking shape in Wilmington
Yeah, I know, you think about Charlotte when you think about NC fintech. But you should also consider Wilmington. This is first and foremost because Live Oak Bank is spinning out new startups like leaves on the (bank) branches in spring. Readers may be familiar with nCino, but should also have Apiture and Synply on their radar. Not to mention Canapi Ventures, a $750 million venture fund.
There are also new companies from former Live Oak Bank and nCino employees that are beginning to create that “flywheel effect” that healthy startup ecosystems have.
I doubt many readers think of Wilmington overlapping with the life sciences sector very much either. But HealthTech (versus other life sciences sectors like pharmaceutical development) is very much in play.
Fresh off winning the Coastal Entrepreneur Awards’ overall prize and making a pitch at the NC TECH State of Tech Conference in Raleigh, Morris Nguyen of Predicate HPG gave a pitch and joined a group of HealthTech startups and investors on a panel educating the audience on the sector’s potential at the coast. A second local startup called NUREAM was also on this panel and did an excellent investor pitch at the end of the day. (Our coastal companies are also starting to get some financial help from the NC Biotech Center HQ.)
And yes, in the middle of all of the above I stole the lunch keynote speaker from Raleigh-Durham Startup Week…. But Boston native John Hill was the over-caffeinated Energizer bunny every event needs to keep the crowd awake after lunch. Hill is the former Chief Evangelist of Techstars and LinkedIn, and we are eager to get a Wilmington startup into a Techstars Cohort. Hill now works for an MVP software company called WHOP, helping college entrepreneurs with no-code software. (He has a GREAT story about the movie “The Departed.”)
Award-winning AI startups at the BEACH?
You can’t go very far in the modern North Carolina startup ecosystem without talking about AI, and this was no different at the NEW event. The buzziest of the new startups in the Wilmington ecosystem is SkillMaker.AI, which won the audience vote in the AI category at the granddaddy of all NC investor conferences, CED’s VentureConnect. (This made Skillmaker the second Wilmington startup to walk into Raleigh and take home a best-in-AI honor after OpiAID won at the 2023 NC TECH Association Awards.)
The main takeaway: Yes, the Wilmington startup ecosystem has real momentum. Add to that the improvement in quality of place (recently recognized by Southern Living Magazine) as well as the city’s recent ranking as #7 in the U.S. for job and salary growth, and things are looking up. Wilmington even ranks in the top 50 in a recent Tech Index!
Wait am I describing an up-and-coming startup ecosystem or adding another ingredient in a cocktail recipe? And why am I thirsty again? Arghhh!
All photos for this article were supplied by Jack Fleming
