transformation happening in Myrtle Beach previously here<\/a>.<\/p>\nLast week I headed
\nback to the Atlantic, this time to Wilmington, North Carolina. And there is
\neven more happening there.<\/p>\n
On Thursday,
\nroughly 300 entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem leaders packed Cape Fear
\nCommunity College’s Union Station for the fourth annual Investor Buzz-In,
\norganized by the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington, better known as NEW.
\nThe event has become something of a coastal version of a venture capital
\nconference: startup pitches mixed with investor “reverse pitches,”
\npanel discussions, conversations and, perhaps most importantly, a lot of people
\nmeeting one another. Organizers describe it as the only venture capital
\nconference in North Carolina east of Raleigh. This year’s event sold out.<\/p>\n
The panels were
\npopulated by investors from across NC and out of state, all recognizing that
\nthere is deal flow to be had at the coast. And the scene is industry-diverse, and
\nthere were notable rock-star founders in the room. Among the startups that
\npitched during the day, I saw:<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nRCOAST – Dr. Christy Swann brought
\nher experience building sensors used to analyze Mars back to Earth, with novel
\nmachine learning techniques that tie to seasonal lidar-based coastal mapping.
\nRCOAST informs coastal mitigation projects, the insurance industry and other
\nstakeholders of the multi-billion dollar coastal erosion industry. She\u2019s just
\nclosed a $945k pre-seed round and is selling to clients from NC to Texas.<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nSkillmaker – Robin Cowie was the
\ncreator of The Blair Witch Project and architected significant growth of the
\nMadden video game franchise before choosing Wilmington for his latest venture.
\nHe\u2019s created immersive reality environments to train automotive repair workers
\nand inked a national deal with Napa Auto Parts. Blending film and storytelling
\nto build the workforce of the future.<\/p>\n
\u25cf\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nPredicate – Dr. Morris Nguyen was
\na practicing doctor and saw repeated issues for his patients that he believed
\ncould be solved with AI. Predicate, NC TECH\u2019s Data Innovation Company of the
\nyear last year, is building the intelligence layer to bring together and
\nunderstand all your wearable biometric data with real-time contextual analysis
\nand natural language processing. They\u2019re running trials on 5 continents, all
\nfrom a Wilmington HQ.<\/p>\n
There is a
\ntemptation to look at an event like this and declare that Wilmington has
\nsuddenly become an entrepreneurial city. True: it has become a startup hub. But
\nthere is nothing particularly sudden about it.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Overnight Success That Took More Than a Decade<\/p>\n
Jim Roberts has
\nbeen one of the people beating this drum for a long time. He arrived in
\nWilmington in 2013 to lead the newly established Center for Innovation and
\nEntrepreneurship at UNC Wilmington. He later founded NEW and Wilmington Angels
\nfor Local Entrepreneurs, or WALE. Looking back at Wilmington’s entrepreneurial
\nlandscape before that period, Roberts has recalled that there simply wasn’t
\nmuch organized startup advocacy, and not many people in the room.<\/p>\n
The contrast with
\ntoday is striking. NEW now describes a community encompassing more than 1,000
\nentrepreneurs. Its monthly startup events reportedly average around 170
\nattendees. UNCW’s CIE, under the leadership of Heather McWhorter, operates
\nmentoring programs, startup programming and a weekly 1 Million Cups gathering
\nchampioned by Jack Fleming. Angel networks and investment organizations
\nincluding WALE, VentureSouth and Cape Fear Ventures have added pieces of a
\nlocal capital infrastructure.<\/p>\n
But Wilmington also
\nhas something that many communities trying to manufacture an entrepreneurial
\necosystem don’t have: examples of what success actually looks like.<\/p>\n
Live Oak Bank,
\nfounded in Wilmington in 2005, became more than a successful bank. It helped
\ncreate a concentration of financial technology expertise that subsequently
\nproduced companies including nCino and Apiture. The three companies
\ncollectively have hired more than 1,000 UNCW graduates, according to NEW’s
\naccounting of the ecosystem, creating precisely the sort of experienced
\ntechnical and operational workforce from which additional companies can emerge.<\/p>\n
And then there is
\nVantaca. The Wilmington software company grew out of a local
\nproperty-management business whose founder couldn’t find software capable of
\ndoing what he needed. So his team built it. Last October, Vantaca announced a
\nminority growth investment of more than $300 million at a valuation of $1.25
\nbillion. Wilmington now has another unmistakable demonstration that a
\nsignificant technology company can not only start here, but remain here while
\nscaling nationally.<\/p>\n
Those stories
\nmatter for reasons that extend beyond jobs or valuations. Successful
\nentrepreneurial ecosystems recycle. An employee learns how to scale a company,
\nthen joins another. An executive becomes a mentor. A founder becomes an angel
\ninvestor. Engineers leave established companies to start their own. Customers
\nbecome sources of ideas. Investors who made money once become willing to take
\nanother risk.<\/p>\n
Over time,
\nknowledge, talent, relationships and capital begin circulating through a place
\nrather than merely passing through it. That is when entrepreneurial activity
\nstarts becoming an entrepreneurial ecosystem.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhy Are the Investors Here?<\/p>\n
Which brings us
\nback to the room at Investor Buzz-In. When Roberts held the inaugural event in
\n2023, he reported attracting 53 investors representing more than $1 billion in
\ncapital. By last year’s event, nearly 300 people from 15 states gathered in
\nWilmington. Last week\u2019s fourth edition again filled the 300-person venue. <\/p>\n
The important
\nnumber isn’t 300. It is the number of people in those 300 who didn’t have to be
\nthere.<\/p>\n
Investors have
\nplenty of places to spend a Thursday. Many of North Carolina’s venture firms
\nare headquartered several hours away in the Triangle or Charlotte. Investor
\nBuzz-In is meaningful because some of those people increasingly consider
\nWilmington worth the trip.<\/p>\n
Virginie Raphael
\nruns the Full Circle Fund out of New York. She has led a successful career in
\ninvesting, including being an early investor in Uber\u2019s SEED round as they were
\ntrying to legalize their disruption of the entrenched taxi industry. She has
\nalready invested into the Wilmington ecosystem and described that she joined
\nthe event with knowledge that there is regional depth and breadth to continue
\nto explore.<\/p>\n
Her example is
\nimportant because entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems aren’t quite
\nthe same thing. Entrepreneurs can exist almost anywhere. Ecosystems develop
\nwhen the infrastructure surrounding those entrepreneurs becomes dense enough
\nthat starting and scaling a company becomes progressively easier. And
\ninfrastructure doesn’t always look like infrastructure<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Infrastructure You Can’t See<\/p>\n
I’ve been thinking
\nand writing about this a lot lately. In Myrtle Beach, I watched a community
\ndeliberately build an entrepreneurial ecosystem from relatively modest pieces:
\na municipal coworking facility, recurring gatherings, an accelerator, mentors,
\nfounder networks and organizations willing to convene people repeatedly. None
\nof these investments individually transforms a regional economy.<\/p>\n
Their power comes
\nfrom accumulation. A meetup leads to a relationship. A relationship leads to an
\nintroduction. An introduction leads to a customer. A successful entrepreneur
\nmentors another founder. An investor who traveled to town for one event comes back
\nto see another company.<\/p>\n
Eventually the
\nflywheel begins turning a little faster on its own.<\/p>\n
Wilmington is
\nconsiderably further along that curve. It has a university entrepreneurship
\ncenter that dates to 2013. It has recurring founder gatherings. It has angel
\nnetworks. It has experienced technology executives. It has successful companies
\nproducing talent. It has entrepreneurs who can point to local examples of
\ncompanies that scaled. And increasingly, it has connections into the larger
\ncapital networks elsewhere in North Carolina and beyond.<\/p>\n
I heard repeatedly
\nduring the day from founders, investors and stakeholders that moved to
\nWilmington not just for the beach, but for this ecosystem. Absolutely the beach
\nis a draw. But Robin Cowie could have built his company anywhere. He chose
\nWilmington over California because of the collaborative culture here versus a
\nmore cutthroat culture he saw in Santa Cruz, the other city he considered.<\/p>\n
Richard Stroupe
\nvacationed on the NC coast as a kid. Moving here after a long career with the
\nCIA and defense sectors, including founding and exiting his own companies was
\nappealing. But it is the entrepreneurial energy that sealed the deal to move
\nfrom DC to NC and to form Cape Fear Ventures to invest further in the
\necosystem.<\/p>\n
It is great to have
\ngreat founders, mentors and investors in your back yard. These are all
\nparts of what I\u2019ve called institutional infrastructure. But there is
\nanother lesson embedded here that economic-development organizations sometimes
\noverlook. You don’t necessarily have to own all of your infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Wilmington sits
\nroughly two hours from the Research Triangle. That proximity allows its
\nentrepreneurs to tap into investors, accelerators, research institutions and
\nstatewide organizations without having to recreate every one of them locally.
\nNEW explicitly describes this as an ability to “borrow”
\ninfrastructure from the Triangle while building Wilmington’s own capabilities
\nat the coast.<\/p>\n
Investor Buzz-In is
\nalmost a physical manifestation of that strategy. Instead of asking every
\nWilmington entrepreneur to drive to the capital, the Buzz-in brings some of the
\ncapital to Wilmington.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMomentum Is Not the Finish Line<\/p>\n
This is where the
\nWilmington story becomes particularly interesting to me. The question is no
\nlonger whether entrepreneurship can happen here. Live Oak, nCino, Apiture,
\nVantaca and a growing collection of younger companies have settled that
\nquestion.<\/p>\n
The more
\ninteresting question is what Wilmington builds next. There are indications that
\nthe ecosystem remains thinner than the turnout at events might suggest. Local
\ninvestors have said that more local capital needs to be activated. Others have
\npointed to the need for greater concentrations of investable companies before
\nlarger numbers of professional investors can justify spending significant time
\nhere. <\/p>\n
UNCW’s Heather
\nMcWhorter has said the CIE’s physical space is routinely full and that the
\ncommunity needs additional places for entrepreneurs to gather. Roberts himself
\nhas pointed to gaps in specialized professional services for startups including
\nmore incubators and accelerators.<\/p>\n
Those are
\nsecond-order problems. They\u2019re the kinds of problems that begin appearing
\nbecause the first layer of infrastructure is working. Thom Ruhe, CEO of NC IDEA
\nasked panelists about what is still missing in the ecosystem. Who should be at
\nthese events that are not yet participating? What activities, organizations or
\npeople could help take the current momentum and launch it into exponential
\ngrowth?<\/p>\n
The responses were
\nconsistent. While some city officials were in the room, there is a lack of
\nbroader support from the state and federal government. Economic development at
\nthat level still seems focused on recruitment of existing companies from other
\nplaces, rather than building from within. Ruhe shared research from the
\nKauffman Foundation that found the economic impact of a successful startup is
\nat least 3 generations. In other words, companies grown in place tend not to be
\nrecruiting targets by other states or regions during their first ~50 years.<\/p>\n
Supporting
\nentrepreneurial growth is a far stronger economic strategy than recruitment,
\nwith much higher dividends back into the community.<\/p>\n
This may be the
\nmoment when Wilmington has an unusually important choice to make.
\nEntrepreneurial ecosystems can reach a certain level organically. Founders find
\none another. Successful companies attract talent. People like Roberts spend
\nyears connecting people who ought to know one another. Universities create
\nprograms. Investors begin paying attention.<\/p>\n
But eventually, momentum creates demand for more durable institutions.<\/p>\n
That can mean
\nadditional early-stage capital and better mechanisms for activating local
\nwealth. It can mean more accelerator and commercialization capacity. It can
\nmean specialized professional services that understand venture-backed
\ncompanies. It can mean physical spaces where founders, researchers, investors
\nand experienced operators encounter one another routinely rather than
\noccasionally. <\/p>\n
Most importantly,
\nit means treating these things as economic infrastructure rather than
\nextracurricular activities for entrepreneurs. Roads help goods move. Broadband
\nhelps information move. Airports help people move. Entrepreneurial institutions
\nhelp ideas, talent and capital move.<\/p>\n
Wilmington has
\nreached the point where enough of all three are circulating that the results
\nare becoming difficult to dismiss. I can\u2019t wait to see what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have been spending a lot of time at the beach lately, without actually spending any time on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[45,49,48,137,2927,61,43460,113836],"class_list":["post-900556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-startups","tag-technology","tag-wilmington","tag-wral-techwire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}