Tech Leaders Forum of Charlotte

Global Entrepreneurship Week set to kick off in Charlotte Charlotte's Global Entrepreneurship Week is back this year with a weeklong series of events created for founders at any stage. The event runs from Nov. 18-21 in Charlotte and from Nov. 18-24 worldwide. Innovate Charlotte, the city of Charlotte, NC IDEA and PitchBreakfast are hosting the Queen City’s GEW this year. The organizers are collaborating with local nonprofits, educational institutions, tech organizations, municipal governments and ecosystem leaders to offer a range of speakers, workshops and networking events. Global Entrepreneurship Week launched in 2008 by Global Entrepreneurship Network to help people across the world cultivate their ideas and scale their businesses. More than 40,000 events will take place in 200 countries, impacting more than 10 million entrepreneurs across the globe. Charlotte's GEW will include 17 local events to help new founders and seasoned entrepreneurs connect, network and scale their businesses. This year marks?Charlotte's fourth GEW. There will be a mix of free in-person, virtual and hybrid events. Juan Garzón, managing director of Innovate Charlotte, previously told?CBJ?that GEW will allow visitors to get a taste of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. "Small business and entrepreneurship remain the main drivers of our economy," he said. "Now more than ever, we need to support and nurture our budding entrepreneurs.” Two big events include the NC IDEA Ecosystem Summit and the Venture135 Conference, each held Nov. 19-20 and Nov. 21-22, respectively. NC IDEA's Summit will bring together leaders to discuss the need to support entrepreneurs. Venture 135, a limited guest event, showcases the top Seed Stage, Series A and Series B companies across the world. Other events to be held next week include Standups and Startups, which combines comedy and entrepreneurial life, on Nov. 21 as well as Davidson Entrepreneurs Network Showcase Celebration, which highlights the The Hurt Hub@Davidson community's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, on Nov. 20. For a full list of Charlotte's GEW events, here's the link! https://lnkd.in/g87hTH8w

How Charlotte startup SocialHub plans to grow across the Southeast While living at a local apartment complex, Charlotte co-founders and spouses Monica and David Hickman saw the need for more elevated events and experiences to help create a vibrant community and end the ongoing epidemic of loneliness. "The Covid-19 pandemic was hard on all of us — particularly those living in apartments," David Hickman told?CBJ. "Loneliness and isolation were, and still are, parallel pandemics that negatively impact so many." The couple founded SocialHub? in 2021 to address those issues. The startup organizes resort-style resident events — cocktail bars to themed parties to movie nights — for more than 100 apartment complexes in Charlotte, Charleston and Raleigh. SocialHub also helps enhance leasing teams' social media engagement. David Hickman is the president; Monica Hickman is the majority owner and CEO. SocialHub said the services augment the work of leasing agents and community mangers who typically have little time and insufficient resources for activity planning. As a third-party provider, the company's offerings allow apartment property teams to focus on leasing, rent collection and property maintenance, David Hickman said. Each month, SocialHub's clients choose between one to three event from a list of experiences. The company partners with vendors to provide services such as catering, mixologists, festive decorations, professional sounds, glassware and a set up and tear down team. It also edits recap videos and photos to help communities showcase the engagements online. Over the last three years, the company has grown past the $1 million in annual revenue mark. It has about 21 full-time and part-time employees. David Hickman said the startup plans to expand to Jacksonville, Florida, early next year. Over the next four years, SocialHub also aims to grow its presence across the Southeast with franchise opportunities possible in 2026. "Together, we’ve built something that not only enriches the lives of apartment residents but also adds significant value for property owners and operators," he added. https://lnkd.in/ecSmsT9E

Congrats to all 50 of the Charlotte area companies on this year's Charlotte Business Journal #Fast50! We look forward to celebrating your successes on December 5! There are quite a few regulars at our TLF events as well: Apparo - Business and Tech Solutions for Nonprofits Bravo Team Engineering Design & Fabrication Dualboot Partners Elevate Digital Flexential Lucid Bots MedShift Opkalla PetScreening Undergrads Well done!

Charlotte data center operator secures investment from Morgan Stanley segment Flexential, one of Charlotte's largest colocation companies, has landed an investment from Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners to help drive continued growth. Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners is a private infrastructure investment platform. It will invest in the common equity of Flexential as a co-controlling investor alongside GI Partners, a private investment firm. The collaboration will provide "substantial primary capital" for the expansion of Flexential's data center operations, CEO Chris Downie told?CBJ. That will allow the company to enhance its national FlexAnywhere platform and support increased demand for digital infrastructure. Financial terms of the deal, anticipated to be finalized by the end of this year, were not disclosed. Colocation is a term used when businesses house their information technology infrastructure off site at a secure facility. FlexAnywhere — a network that provides both data-center and cloud-based connectivity — allows clients to connect their IT infrastructure to cloud providers, back-office platforms and internal data centers. Flexential operates more than 40 data centers across 19 U.S. markets. It sees significant growth opportunities from services including enterprise digital transformation, cloud adoption and artificial intelligence workloads. Flexential said the investment will help fuel that vision. Downie said the capital will also enable the company to "double down on active development to meet robust market demand." Flexential declined to comment on any potential new markets the company is eyeing. "This strategic investment better positions us to expand our geographic presence," he said. "We look forward to accelerating our platform investments and further scaling our data center footprint to meet market needs." As a result of the deal, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and GI Partners will each have three members on Flexential's board to provide strategic guidance, Downie said. Flexential was born in early 2018?after Charlotte-based Peak 10 and Denver-based ViaWest merged in August 2017 in a $1.68 billion deal. In 2019, the company?expanded its data center near UNC Charlotte?to 129,000 square feet. Flexential has another local office in southwest Charlotte. https://lnkd.in/eKQc6J6D

Our friends at Cofounders Capital invests in startup led by former Wells Fargo executive and fintech veteran to launch Charlotte startup The company, Spidr, is set to launch by year end to address an issue in the Banking-as-a-Service space. Embedding banking solutions such as debit and credit cards continues to grow rapidly. But options for early-stage and middle-market companies have diminished, driving traditional BaaS businesses to fail or face increased regulatory scrutiny about the model. That problem played out this past spring. Synapse, a prominent BaaS company that acted as a middleman between fintechs and banks, collapsed in April due to accusations of losing track of customers' balances. That led to claims of missing funds for its fintech users, with?nearly $160 million worth of deposits frozen?as a result of the failure. The Synapse debacle didn't surprise Ramy Serageldin and Joyce Mehlman, co-founders of Spidr. They believe the key to a fintech's success is a direct relationship with all parties involved, which Synapse failed to provide. Spidr allows companies of varying sizes across different industries to build, launch and grow embedded banking and fintech products. Its flexible application programming interface (API) platform enables customers to access top card processors and vendors needed to go to market, he said. That's while upholding direct relationships with their bank partner, unlike conventional BaaS models. Spidr primarily targets early-stage fintech companies seeking a partner to go to market with, as well as established middle-market businesses looking to include embedded banking products in their services, Mehlman said. Embedded banking offerings could include debit cards, savings accounts or credit cards. Serageldin, Spidr CEO, is leading the startup after leaving?Wells Fargo & Co.?(NYSE: WFC) in April as head of connectivity solutions for open banking and embedded finance. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Honeyfi, a Charlotte app that helps couples manage their finances.?Honeyfi was acquired in 2016. Mehlman joined Spidr as its president and chief operating officer. She has decades of experience in the fintech industry, currently serving as the founder of iLEX Consulting Group, LLC — a Nashville, Tennessee-based company that has helped more than 45 fintechs get to market. Spidr intends to use its $1.7 million of seed-round funding to hire employees, primarily in engineering, and for marketing and sales efforts, Serageldin said. The round was led by Cofounders Capital, a Cary-based venture capital company with a focus on companies in the Southeast. Spidr marked Cofounders' 10th investment out of its Fund III,?a $50 million fund that closed last March?and focuses on business-to-business software companies at the seed stage. https://lnkd.in/exuQPRPv

Great to hear the news about our friends Mark McDowell & Don Rainey in today's Charlotte Business Journal! VC firm Charlotte Fund on hunt for more high-growth startups with $10M influx A local venture capital firm has closed its second fund and is searching for more high-growth startups. Charlotte Fund closed its second fund earlier this month at a little more than $10 million. Co-founder and principal Mark McDowell said the goal is to deploy capital into about six to eight later-stage companies across the Carolinas and 15 to 20 seed-stage companies based in the Charlotte region over the next three to four years. The organization began investing from Fund II in June. So far, Charlotte Fund has backed 10 local startups. That includes Charlotte businesses?Fashivly?and Storybutton, Seed the South's "Big Pitch" winners who Charlotte Fund provided each with $50,000. Next year, the firm intends to sponsor the same event,?which was created for startups and investors. But Fund II has two differences compared to the first fund. For starters, Fund II is looking to back later-stage businesses across the Carolinas, not just in Charlotte like Fund I. The other difference is that the second fund's structure focuses on founders funding founders. That means more than 50% of the capital in Fund II will come from local founders, resulting in a robust startup landscape for years to come, McDowell said. Among those later-stage companies was Payzer,?which was acquired last year for $250 million. That deal resulted in returning 25% of total pledged capital to Fund I investors and recycling additional profits into Fund II. "I think we helped open people's eyes to the fact that Charlotte's a very good startup scene," McDowell said. "We have a lot of people that want to live in Charlotte, and a lot of those people are entrepreneurs, and there's not a lot of sources of money. So, we've been able to get into, I think, the best deals in town." McDowell, co-founder of LaunchCLT, and Don Rainey, partner and Grotech Ventures, lead the Charlotte Fund — sharing a vision to transform the region's typically "conservative" investing approach. LaunchCLT, a nonprofit that mentors and educates founders, is the primary general partner of Fund II, pledging more than $1.5 million. Charlotte Fund also has support from CreativeCo, a local growth equity firm. "We can get more money into the hands of entrepreneurs that deserve it," McDowell said. He mentioned that most of the funding for startups here comes from outside of Charlotte. The local VC firm hopes its approach will change that. "There has just not been that many sources of early-stage capital in town," McDowell said. "Many of our best companies have had to raise money from elsewhere. I do see it changing, and I see us making that change." https://lnkd.in/eS9uPfZ2

Charlotte startup Fashivly finds success in personal styling on TikTok During the peak of the pandemic, Ashlyn Greer quit her video production job to figure out how she could make her entrepreneurial goal a reality. "It was kind of a now-or-never time," she said. Greer spent about six months compiling several business plans and ideas but nothing stuck. Then, in the fall of 2020, a friend sent her a text. "She said: 'Hey, I've been living in sweatpants for six months. I don't feel like a human anymore. I've lost a part of myself and confidence by not getting dressed every day,'" Greer recalled her saying. The friend asked Greer, who has about a decade of fashion industry experience, for a personal styling session. Greer searched the internet for fashion trends and sent digital outfit ideas to her friend based on her typical style. Her friend shared the personal looks on social media, which allured interest from several observers looking for the same service. That's when Greer knew what entrepreneurial path she wanted to take. In 2021, she founded Fashivly, a Charlotte-based virtual styling service — or what she calls "the future of online shopping." The platform uses a questionnaire to assemble an outfit and links to shop product recommendations based on a customer's style taste. Fashivly's team curates custom apparel options to fit all budgets, lifestyles and body types. "So instead of just pieces, we're putting together head-to-toe, accessorized looks," Greer said. Customers can choose to receive two styled looks for $39, five for $99 or 10 for $149. They would then select a delivery date for their personalized digital guide, which includes direct links to shop the suggested looks. Fashivly has taken off since its launch three years ago. The startup has seen year-over-year growth in revenue of 100% to 200%. Greer said that was primarily organic growth that came through its social-media strategy. In 2021, Fashivly created a TikTok presence that now has more than 131,000 followers. The page is used to provide personal styling tips. That account is largely credited for the startup's client growth, Greer said. About 18% of Fashivly's customers are international. Fashivly in May closed on a $500,000 pre-seed funding round and, that same month, won a $50,000 investment from the?Seed the South Capital Summit event. The startup was also among seven North Carolina companies to each receive a $50,000 NC IDEA grant this year. It is currently focused on enhancing its online platform. Greer said plans include using artificial intelligence to grow the existing skills of its stylists. Its next seed round, set to kick off later this month, will go toward those efforts. https://lnkd.in/e8Qb3Fir

I'm looking forward to hear Brandon Martin, CPA at ConvergeSouth!

Charlotte startup raises $3M-plus in funding to fight Alzheimer’s disease, dementia Charlotte-based Amissa Health was awarded two grants totaling more than $3 million during the past month. Amissa Health is a startup that generates real-world health and behavior data using?Apple's smartwatches to help prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Last month, the digital health company received a $505,000 Small Business Innovation Research Grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). It plans to use those funds to work with researchers at the?Washington University?School of Medicine in St. Louis to advance its tools that predict preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Amissa said today the?National Institutes of Health?awarded the company with another Small Business Innovation Research grant totaling $2.52 million. The startup intends to use that funding toward expanding its data analytics platform to help research scientists, medical providers and hospital systems access more diverse real-world health and behavior data sets, said Jon Corkey, Amissa's founder and CEO. For that initiative, Amissa is partnering with researchers and advisers from Wake Forest Center for Healthcare Innovation, Massachusetts General Hospital and?Duke University. "The goal is to decentralize data collection methods, enabling broader demographic representation and generating exponentially larger data sets to advance future artificial intelligence and population health research," he told?Charlotte Business Journal. Amissa plans to use some of the $2.52 million grant to hire two or three more employees. It currently has four full-time workers and a college intern. With the $505,000 grant, Amissa is partnering with Dr. Ganesh Babulal, an associate professor in Washington University in St. Louis's department of neurology and director of the DRIVES project. The initiative works to understand how preclinical Alzheimer’s disease impacts driving behavior. The DRIVES project will integrate data from Amissa's Apple Watch app to also monitor sleep patterns and physical activity, providing a more accurate prediction of cognitive decline. Over the next year, Corkey said Amissa plans to use its Apple Watch app at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Washington University to advance its mobile health monitoring and data gathering projects. It is also working to partner with dozens of NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers to boost health measurements across diverse demographics and grow research activity within traditionally underserved and rural communities, he added. https://lnkd.in/ewQpZnvF

Tech Leaders Forum / Charlotte ?? ?? ?? does it again! Nearly 100 of the most talented Tech Entrepreneurs & Investors joined us this morning for our First Annual TECH Venture Fundathon! Special thanks to the Investors who sat on the panel to share their expertise and information about their investment strategy: Joe Oesterling, Ashley Gautreaux, Brandon Shelton, Greg Brown, James N. Bishop, Jason Caplain, Jonathan Bragdon, Sam Teden, Christopher Langford, Don Rainey, Daniel Coley, Dan Roselli, Matt Dunbar, Zakiya Alta Lee, MBA and Matt Shapiro - We are grateful ?? Registration is open for our Q4 program: State of the US Economy & The Impact on Charlotte’s Tech Firms with Mark Vitner, Chief Economist at Piedmont Crescent Capital. Join us if you can! As always, thanks to our sponsors who hosted another stellar event: John Yates John Christenbury Todd Buelow Juan Garzón David Kelbaugh Brandon Martin, CPA William Bissett Matt Butler Learn more about us at https://lnkd.in/eb7YTzSb