The Download

Lister Delgado co-founded IDEA Fund Partners in 2006 as a seed and early-stage technology-focused fund in Durham. Today, IDEA Fund Partners is considered one of the most active early stage funds in the Southeast. In […]

Mike Doernberg is the CEO and Co-Founder of eMinor, Inc. Founded in 2006, eMinor has built three world-class software platforms across a diverse set of industries. ReverbNation is among the leading music marketing platforms, serving […]

Jud is a serial entrepreneur who has started three companies so far: Motricity, Appia, and now Sift Media. Jud co-founded his first company, Motricity, as a high school senior at the North Carolina School of […]

Robbie’s business experiences range from corporate strategies for Fortune 500 companies to founding, building, running and successfully exiting various technology businesses, as well as raising and managing an angel network. She’s passionate about empowering women […]

Lewis Sheats is an entrepreneur and educator. He has identified and developed several unique new ventures from launch to profitability and has both bootstrapped and raised venture funding for several ventures from concept to exit. […]

Thad Tarkington is the co-founder and CEO of Second Nature, formerly FilterEasy, a home wellness subscription service for homes and business. Prior to founding Second Nature, Thad spent three years attending NC State University and […]

Igor Jablokov is the CEO and Founder of Raleigh-based Pryon. Named an “Industry Luminary” by Speech Technology Magazine, he previously founded industry pioneer Yap, the world’s first high-accuracy, fully-automated cloud platform for voice recognition. After […]

Brooks Raiford has served as President and CEO of the North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) since 2008. NC TECH is the statewide industry association for the tech sector, representing over 600 member companies and […]

Brian Handly is the Founder and CEO of Raleigh’s Reveal Mobile, a Data-as-a-Service and mobile intelligence firm that builds location-based audiences from billions of data signals from opted-in mobile devices. At Reveal Mobile, Brian has […]

Thom Ruhe is President and CEO of NC IDEA, a Durham-based private foundation committed to supporting entrepreneurial ambition and economic advancement in North Carolina. He is an entrepreneur, investor and mentor, and works with entrepreneurs, […]