At the Jan. 30, 2014 annual meeting of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the organization announced it would receive $250,000 in grant money from NC IDEA over the next three years in order to scale their support model for growth-stage companies in the Triangle’s entrepreneurial economy. But what that scaling involves remains unclear.

The announcement came at a time when the nonprofit organization which launched 30 years ago is considering a strategic shift, said Dave Rizzo, president and CEO of NC IDEA and a member of the CED board of directors.

“Joan [Siefert Rose] and the CED board have been thinking about a strategy shift for a long time,” said Rizzo in an exclusive interview with WRALTechWire.

Joan Siefert Rose is the president of CED. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

The $250,000 grant from NC IDEA is roughly equivalent to the total grant allocations from within an entire grant cycle from NC IDEA, which has kick-started scores of startups over the past several years with non-dilutive grants of up to $50,000. The grant allocation will not prevent NC IDEA from providing a Spring or Fall 2014 grant cycle for early stage entrepreneurs, said Rizzo.

The grant was made even as the organization undergoes a few significant changes and prepares for next week’s annual Life Science Conference in Raleigh – one of its biggest gatherings.

Its mission statement is clear: “To identify, enable and promote high-growth, high-impact companies and to accelerate the entrepreneurial culture of the Research Triangle and North Carolina.” With more than 4,000 members representing 700-plus companies, the CED touts itself as the largest entrepreneurial organization in the southeast. But as with any organization or company, change is constant.

Miriam Wilson was promoted to vice president in November 2013. In an announcement on the organization’s blog on Nov. 4, the organization said that Wilson “will take on new duties related to CED’s strategic plan. These include oversight for new technology, expanded financial support, and enhanced outreach.”

According to minutes from CED’s November 20, 2013 board meeting, the shift in Wilson’s role will enable Rose, to pursue additional sources of funding for the organization:

“Joan said that Miriam will be responsible for overseeing internal operations at CED while she, as president, begins to spend more time meeting with external audiences in connection with CED’s strategic plan and fund-raising activities.”

The grant from NC IDEA represents roughly 16 percent of CED’s annual operating budget. (CED’s most recently available tax information listed revenue of $1,491,828 and expenses of $1,313,828).

The CED and NC IDEA relationship will not be contingent on specific outcomes, said Rizzo. “We have an understanding of the things that it will be used for – primarily to build up the data infrastructure to allow an easier marshaling of resources for high growth companies.”

TriangulateNC Project Lead Leaves

That goal of data infrastructure also was the aim of CED’s 2013 launch of TriangulateNC, the much-touted “digital doorway” for the Triangle’s entrepreneurial economy. The project started as early as November 2012, launched publicly in May 2013 and was headed by CED’s Hal Thomas.

Thomas parted ways with CED in early December, and had served as the project lead, said Justin Gehtland, co-founder and chairman of Relevance, the design and development firm that donated time to help CED build the first phase of the project.

What’s the status of TriangulateNC?

“The site is still operational,” said Gehtland, despite the departure of Thomas and the earlier departure of Vance Faulkner who worked on the data stream behind the website.

The last news item posted on the site was published on Dec. 4, 2013. The last company to submit a profile was Atompark Software Inc., a firm based in Alexandria, Va.

So what’s next?

“I do not know how CED is planning ahead for phase 2,” said Gehtland.

The company has discussed the project with CED’s Wilson but is unaware of any future strategic planning behind the project, he added.

If the organization does plan to incorporate a build up of the data infrastructure, as Rizzo stated, it would make sense to complete the Triangulate Project.

Grant Criticism

While several people in the startup community told WRALTechWire they support the NC IDEA grant, support was not unanimous.

“I have to wonder if that 250K would be much better off being invested in startups instead of infrastructure for startups,” said James Avery, CEO of Adzerk. “We need more successful companies in the area and the only way to get there is for those startups to get launched and funded.”

Avery is deeply immersed in the startup culture and regularly takes meetings with fellow entrepreneurs.

According to Avery, entrepreneurs in the Triangle spend two to three times as much time and effort to raise money than it would take in New York, NY, or in San Francisco, CA.

“My advice to CED would be to take this money and run an internal startup with it,” Avery added. “If they want to really build tools that would be useful for startups they need people who are running or have been running startups to do it.”

“If It Doesn’t Work …”

CED executives remain mute on their strategic planning process, declining to be interviewed for this story.

However, WRALTechWire has confirmed that there is a strategic plan being reviewed at the February meeting of the CED board of directors. 

NC IDEA expects CED to make a strategic shift in order to address the needs of the entrepreneurial community, Rizzo said.

Rizzo also expects to see CED’s capacity to serve the Triangle’s entrepreneurs to increase through the deployment of enhanced technology tools and a focus on growth-stage companies.

“Frankly, if this doesn’t work, there’s a bigger problem,” Rizzo said.