Since its founding in 2006, NC IDEA has worked to ensure the entire state of North Carolina fosters early-stage founders and new tech talent.
To do this, it has leveraged both competitive grants and put on programs such as the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Summit to help founders grow and gain access to funding across the region. In fact, the private foundation has given out over $5 million to 47 partners across the state since its founding.
Late last week NC IDEA announced its latest round of NC IDEA ECOSYSTEM grants, given out to partner organizations across the state. This year’s recipients, who took home a collective $1.5 million in grant funding, all focus on supporting under-represented, female, or minority founders in the state. Winners include:
- Bunker Labs (Durham)
- Code the Dream (Durham)
- Crisp Small Business Resource Center at ECU (Greenville)
- ImagineHub (Greensboro)
- Mountain BizWorks (Asheville)
- Natural Capital Investment Fund (Chapel Hill)
- Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (Wilmington)
- North Carolina Business Council (Raleigh)
- Piedmont Business Capital (Greensboro)
- Provident1898 (Durham)
- RIoT (Raleigh and Wilson)
- S.G. Atkins Community Development Corp. (Winston-Salem)
- Thread Capital (Raleigh)
- VentureAsheboro (Asheboro)
- Ventureprise at UNC Charlotte (Charlotte)
- Winston Starts (Winston-Salem)
- Young Founders Institute (Chapel Hill)
Beyond building up community partner groups, NC IDEA also hosts its own lab for founders. The next NC IDEA LABS’ virtual cohort will kick off February 2021 and will be an intensive four-week customer discovery program. The program is for founders in the ‘idea’ or early stage of building a startup. Applications close on January 3rd and can be found here.
