2020 Triangle Tweeners: Investor Scot Wingo adds 33 new firms to emerging stars list

RALEIGH — Scot Wingo’s “Triangle Tweener List” just keeps on getting bigger.

On Thursday night, the serial entrepreneur revealed the latest startups to make his fifth annual list that celebrates emerging companies in the region — what he calls “Goldilocks startups that are not too small and not too large.”

In total, 33 new firms made the cut raising the total number to 176 companies — up from 143 last year.

“That’s a 23 percent increase, which is quite substantial,” said Wingo, who hosted an awards ceremony at the at Transfer Co. Food Hall in Raleigh. “More early-stage tweeners, more investment in tweeners and more late stage tweeners are all very bullish signs that our startup ecosystem is not only health and thriving, but I would say exploding.”

Serial entrepreneur Scot Wingo

Investment dollars got a bump from $160 million to $436 million — a 172 percent jump.

On the flip side, exits were down but that doesn’t seem to worry Wingo too much.

“I view that as positive. The tweeners are holding on longer, getting bigger which should result in more IPOs which I think are the best long-term outcome for the reason,” he said.

Triangle Tweeners have the following criteria:

They must be headquartered in the Triangle.
They need to be a technology company — software, hardware, tech-enabled services, digitally native brands, e-commerce, etc. No agencies, or consultancies. No life science (drugs, CRO, medical devices) companies.
Have at least $1,000,000/yr in sales OR 10 people.
Once a company is over $80m/year in revenue or 500 employees they ‘graduate’ off the list.

Here are the winners in the four categories:

Top Tweener Exits