Bronto Software co-founder Joe Colopy is funneling $1.5 million dollars – not into another tech startup, but into future entrepreneurs.
The philanthropic gift, from Colopy and his wife, Karalyn, is to endow a program for technology entrepreneurship at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Colopy sees it as more than a contribution to a school. He sees it as an investment in the future of the Triangle tech ecosystem.
“I want to give more opportunities to the really sharp students there and, at the same time, find a long-term way to help what we’re doing here in North Carolina,” he said.
Colopy was familiar with the school for years, long before his daughter graduated from the school in 2020. Tech entrepreneurs had reeled him in to help with a few classes. And pre-pandemic, he had started a summer entrepreneurship program, pairing students with local tech startups.
Then came Covid, which marked the end of the program.
With the money, Colopy hopes to develop something “more real and long term.”
“It’s a way of assuring something wouldn’t just happen for a year or two, but would happen indefinitely,” he said. “It’s an endowment. “
When Colopy was a kid in Akron, Ohio, he didn’t have entrepreneurship in his “DNA.” The son of a municipal judge, he wasn’t exposed to entrepreneurship in his formative years. But what he did have was drive. As early as middle school he was tinkering with computers, packaging together games, putting together his own publication, translating ideas and working to get them out to the world.
“It didn’t necessarily manifest itself as a company, because that wasn’t a thing to do in the '80s,” he said. But it did help him develop the entrepreneurial mindset that, years later, would lead to Bronto Software, a Durham company that sold to Netsuite (now Oracle) for $200 million.
Colopy didn’t go to an elite STEM school – just a “regular high school in Akron.”
But the Triangle has just such a school the NCSSM, which could expedite entrepreneurship journeys with the right support, Colopy says. He sees investing in the entrepreneurs it’s creating as a long-term investment, not in what the students will create today, but in five, 10, even 20 years.
Durham-based NCSSM, which has a second campus in Morganton, considers Colopy a “mentor and role model” for students, according to Chancellor Todd Roberts.
"We’re grateful for his willingness to invest in North Carolina’s students through his and Karalyn’s incredible gift, as well as through his time and talent," Roberts said in a statement.
The search is on for a leader to run the program, according to Roberts.