What’s going on inside Launch Chapel Hill? The year-old new business accelerator – one of several accelerators and shared office space providers to blossom in the Triangle over the past couple of years – welcomes another group of companies as some “graduates” move on. So what’s the story behind the young venture that is backed by UNC-Chapel Hill? Entrepreneurs and program manager Dina Mills provide insight to Jason Parker in this exclusive story for WRALTechWire Insiders.

CHAPEL HIL, N.C. - On Monday, Jan. 6, Karl Murphy walked through the doors of Launch Chapel Hill for the first day of a 22-week intensive startup accelerator program.

Murphy, the founder of Get Spiffy, isn’t the typical entrepreneur that is often selected for incubator or accelerator programs. Neither Murphy nor his business fit into a traditional startup mold. And that’s what made him and his company stand out to the selection committee, says Dina Mills, the program manager.

Launch Chapel Hill, opened in January 2013 at “the edge of UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus,” according to Mills, the organization’s program manager. Supported by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the town of Chapel Hill, Orange County and a private investor based in Baltimore, MD, the Rosemary Street building quickly attracted entrepreneurs with ties to the University.

Murphy wasn’t in the original grouping of companies, and Mills had yet to be hired, but the launch of the accelerator did not go unnoticed. The facility attracted local media attention and was quickly dubbed a “venture hub” for the Triangle’s town on top of a hill. One article went so far as to claim that the program launched to directly rival the work of American Underground.

Mills doesn’t see it that way. She came on board in March of 2013 tasked with developing the comprehensive 22-week program for the accelerator’s entrepreneurial teams.

“Chapel Hill started a formal entrepreneurial program,” said Mills, celebrating the decision and the partnership that brought the accelerator program to fruition, “and perhaps it was a bit later than Durham,” said Mills, “but Launch has become a place of centralized activity, really moving the city forward.”

‘Open-Door Concept’

She calls it the “open door concept,” in that she regularly discusses entrepreneurial trends with American Underground’s chief strategist Adam Klein. “Launch was the first step in kickstarting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chapel Hill.”

The ecosystem existed before there was a formal location, a formal building, said Mills. Entrepreneurs were working in Chapel Hill – from university dorm rooms to small coworking spaces to home offices to coffee shops.

Take Karl Murphy. His business – Get Spiffy – launched in early 2012. The company provides a mobile car washing and detailing service to individual customers by partnering with real estate property groups and office property managers.

The business started with a single truck and a small team of professional car wash professionals, said Murphy. The company expanded, creating a large radius from Winston-Salem to Fayetteville to Richmond, VA, said Murphy, in approximately 18 months. By November of 2013, the company had a staff of 15 and nine vehicles on the road, deployed to a variety of locations to provide detailing and wash services.

It’s not your traditional incubator-ready startup – or at least not at first glance, said Mills.

“We felt that there were already a great number of support systems for technology companies,” said Mills, “but less so for other types of companies.” Take Get Spiffy – certainly not your typical technology company. However, said Murphy, in order to grow into a scalable business and become “the Uber of car wash and detail services,” the company plans to deploy innovative technology solutions through a mobile app on iOS and Android devices. This appealed to the selection committee, said Mills.

As did Persever8, a nonprofit that provides job training and life skills education to adults with high-functioning Autism, and Zip-Services, a commercial laundry and linen service provider focused on providing linen services to restaurants, salons, hotels and spas through a technology-driven solution.

Technology integration is a vital component for “non-tech” startups, suggested Mills, and in order to continue to support Chapel Hill’s traditionally diverse business community, Launch Chapel Hill intentionally recruits and selects companies that don’t necessarily fit a traditional mold.

Good candidates, said Mills, might have an idea for a high-impact business, or be an entrepreneurial team with a proven concept that is seeking technology integration assistance, and is ready to focus down for the 22 weeks of the program.

It’s also important “that the teams want to stay in the area.” She isn’t referring solely to downtown Chapel Hill – or Orange County. “We hope they chose to stay in the Triangle,” said Mills.

It’s like our basketball rivalries here on Tobacco Road. Sure, you may be cheering for Duke, or for UNC, or for State, but each of those schools carries the banner for and represents the ACC. “So while Chapel Hill is our team,” Mills explained, “I also am looking for us to promote what’s happening in the Triangle.”

She’s right to celebrate. Launch is graduating three entrepreneurial teams that have raised more than $1 million in funding in the past nine months.

Impulsonic, Keona Health and Turnsmith (formerly DataCraft) are leaving the incubator space and moving a few blocks away. Their new home – for now – will be at University Towers on Franklin Street, where the companies will continue to grow.

In total, Launch Chapel Hill now has five alumni teams. One team – Resound Magazine – has relocated to Washington, DC. The other team, Level Logic, is now working out of the 1789 Venture Lab on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

The Lineup

Along with Get Spiffy, Persever8 and Zip-Services, four other teams started their 22-week intensive incubator program on January 6, 2014. They are:

  • Hypestarter, a crowd-sourced database that collects event content from local audiences in order to create a complete map of every event happening in any given geographic location;
  • Let’s Chip In, a crowd-funding platform for gifts in order to support life events, a team that formed during November’s Triangle Startup Weekend, won the Carolina Challenge pitch competition, and features entrepreneurial co-founders with ties to each city in the Triangle;
  • NanoOncology, Inc., a biotechnology startup that delivers and develops cancer treatments using “NanoJacket” technology; and
  • RethinkH2O, a business dedicated to help large-scale water users reduce water costs, increase sustainability and enhance water independence.

Aiming for Investors

These seven companies join the current residents of Launch Chapel Hill. The seven companies were selected from 12 finalists after an extensive vetting process, said Mills, indicating a difficult decision for the selection committee that included town official Dwight Basset, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Ted Zoller, Mills, and other community and business leaders.

Once the process started, Murphy said the selection committee worked quickly. The company applied in November, pitched the selection committee in December, and decisions were made around the holiday season for a launch date of January 6, 2014.

“It’s been absolutely awesome,” said Murphy, “I am a very happy member of the new cohort.” The company is on target to release its new mobile app in February, delivering additional value and convenience to its current customer base.

“We started in 2012, we grew in 2013 and validated the business model,” he added, “and we’re shifting our business model completely to a technology-driven one in 2014.”

The company is on track to seek investment to scale its operations and expects to raise an initial seed round in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Murphy’s management team works out of Launch Chapel Hill, occupying two desks. While at first glance, he’s not your typical entrepreneur, joking about having grey hair rather than hipster’s glasses, he fits into the business model that Launch Chapel Hill was built to support.

“Our purpose in joining the program was to elevate our technology components of our business and to really develop some competitive advantage around that offering,” said Murphy, “we want to expand, and we want to expand with technology, not just more bodies.”