Triangle Startup Guide adds upcoming innovation competition for NC State students

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – With weekly updates to keep content fresh, WRAL TechWire’s Triangle Startup Guide offers a timely resource package for anyone looking to start or grow a business in the Triangle area.

One section of the guide features a list of pitch competitions for entrepreneurs seeking more funding and exposure beyond traditional seed rounds. Today, we added NC State University’s upcoming Make-A-Thon program, in which student teams are tasked with creating the best solution to a sustainability challenge. At the end of the weekend, participating teams will pitch their ideas to judges and local companies for a chance to win cash prizes.

This is a good opportunity for beginner student-entrepreneurs who have an idea for a product but haven’t created a prototype yet. This year’s competition, held Jan. 27–30, will offer $2,000 to the winning team, $1,000 to the runner-up and $500 to the third-place winner.

The deadline to register is Jan. 16. Students can sign up as an existing team of up to four people, or as an individual or partial team to be matched by the Make-A-Thon planning committee.

NC State Make-A-Thon

Other recent additions to the Triangle Startup Guide

Every week, we update the guide with new resources for local entrepreneurs for our exclusive Triangle Startup Guide.

If we missed something, please feel free to suggest it for inclusion. You can email me directly or use this contact form.

Here’s a review of additions we’ve made in recent weeks:

In the “Accelerators and Mentorship Programs” section, we added LaunchWENDELL—a new 10-week program from the Town of Wendell and Wake Technical Community College that aims to support entrepreneurs and small business owners in Wendell. Applications for the first cohort are open through Dec. 1, and classes are set to kick off in January 2022. Participants will be assigned a mentor from the business community to guide their business development strategy.
We added the Southern Opportunity And Resilience (SOAR) Fund to the COVID-19 resources section of the guide. The program provides low-interest loans of up to $100,000 to small businesses and nonprofits in 15 states across the southeastern region, including North Carolina. To qualify, small businesses must be experiencing pandemic-related economic disruption and have 50 or fewer full-time equivalent employees and annual revenues of less than $5 million.
We made an addition to our interactive map of incubators and coworking spaces: Raleigh’s The Wright Village initially opened in July 2020 as a coworking space for entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities to connect with like-minded individuals. Soon, it expanded into an incubator, providing one-on-one business coaching and mentorship. The space comprises a communal/coworking area, shared and private offices, dedicated desks, a conference room, and a podcast studio.
In the “Inspiration, Advice & More Resources” section of the guide, we added links to all of the stories in our “Tomorrow’s Unicorns” series, which wrapped up in late October. The six-part multimedia series covers Raleigh’s most promising startups with “unicorn” potential (a term designated for companies surpassing the $1 billion valuation mark).
In the “Competitions, Grants & Other Funding” section, we added Wolf Den, a popular pitch competition held every year during NC State University’s Global Entrepreneurship Week. A handful of student teams present their business ventures to a panel of judges and a live audience for a chance to win cash prizes. This year’s edition will be held on Nov. 12 at the Duke Energy Hall in Hunt Library.
In the “Venture Capital and Angel Groups” section, we added RollingSouth – a new rolling fund from South Carolina-based angel investor group VentureSouth. The fund launched earlier this month and targets early-stage tech startups across the Southeast. The team behind it has experience investing over $50 million into 82 companies through 190 investment rounds.
In the “Inspiration, Advice & More Resources” section of the guide, we added StartUp at Wake Tech, a new resource hub available from Wake Technical Community College. The program, which launched last month, offers free one-on-one business counseling, workshops and seminars, how-to guides and other content to help anyone start or grow a business.