More than a dozen early-stage tech companies in the Triangle will receive a significant capital boost from serial entrepreneur Scot Wingo's rolling fund.
On Wednesday, Triangle Tweener Fund announced its 2024 Q2 investments. The investments include 12 new companies and three follow-on investments from the fund’s portfolio.
In total, Triangle Tweener Fund plans to invest $804,000. Wingo told Triangle Business Journal that these companies represent a wide variety of industries, including clean tech, food tech, agtech and enterprise AI.
New Investments:
- Ardent
- Murphy’s Naturals
- Grogo
- Harmony for Staffing
- Gemini Sports Analytics
- Loanwell
- AgEye Technologies
- Flytes
- Plantd
- Remoov
- Cycle Labs
- nDustrial
Follow-on portfolio Investments:
- Muuktest
- Allstacks
- Reveal Mobile
Eleven of the 15 companies were Tweener investments, making up $654,000 — or 81 percent — of the capital invested in Q2. The other companies were pre-tweener companies, obtaining $150,000 or 19 percent of the investment.
“Of the 15 deals we did, probably like eight or nine are what we would call fresh capital and an up round from their previous round,” Wingo said. “And that's a really good sign that the investors are really active in the Triangle area.”
Q2 saw an average round size of $4.2 million, and $21.6 million in average pre-money valuation.
As of now, Triangle Tweener Fund has invested more than $7.4 million since its founding in 2022. This represents 148 investments in 122 Triangle companies.
To obtain capital from the fund, a company must belong to the tech industry and have 10 employees or roughly $1 million in annual recurring revenue. A minimum investment from Triangle Tweener Fund is $20,000, with the average investment from Q2 being $53,666.
Wingo said there are three standard check sizes for investments:
- $25,000 in pre-tweener companies (below $1 million ARR)
- $50,000 in tweener companies ($1 million ARR)
- $100,000 in later-stage companies ($3 million to $4 million ARR)
Looking to the future, Wingo said he sees the IPO market “defrosting,” as companies like Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) and Instacart (Nasdaq: CART) have seen recent success.
If interest rates fall, activity could really pick up, he said.
“I think bankers would tell you it should be a much more robust year in 2025,” Wingo said. “So that's when everyone's thinking the IPO window will really open in a major way.”
