Joan Siefert Rose, president of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, talks with WRAL TechWire Insiders about the Innovators Report released last week which found that startups and other emerging businesses in North Carolina raised more than $460 million in capital through 2013.

So what does the report say about the state’s startup ecosystem going forward?

The report – issued in graphical form – was packed with statistics but not much context. In a Q&A with Insider columnist Jason Parker, Rose opens up.

  • Nine IPOs in 2013. That’s a pretty good year. Is this atypical, or a sign of things to come? (How’s this compare to 2012 or 2011?)

The report is mostly descriptive, so hard to know if it’s predictive of what’s to come. 2013 was a good year for IPOs in general, and also in North Carolina as capital markets began to rebound from the recession. North Carolina had no IPOs in 2011 and 2012, and 3 in 2010.

  • The report appears to include only a partial listing of mergers. What’s the total number? The total estimated value?

Data on size of mergers is confidential, so we rely on SEC filings (when available) or what companies choose to release publicly. That makes it difficult to provide a comprehensive overview or list a total number and dollar amount.

  • How heavily weighted are these major events (funding, milestones, acquisitions) to Triangle-based companies? How are these documented within CED’s TriangulateNC database (i.e. can the public go and view stories about milestones, see funding events, etc.)?

We are working on a regional breakdown and plan to report on that shortly. From the data we’ve been reviewing, a good non-scientific guess is that about 75% – maybe more – of the activity is in the Triangle. Because we have been given access to confidential information on some of these deals, we will be reporting activity in the aggregate.

  • How’s this report/data relate to the study that CED conducted in late 2013? How will this impact how CED conducts its work, moving forward?

It seems to confirm the trends of the benchmark study, especially the dollars and deals in NC weighted toward life science vs. tech. The Innovators Report includes more recent information than the benchmark study, and may indicate that deal syndication picked up in the second half of 2013.

There are some new funders active in North Carolina, and CED already has started reaching out to them to learn what led to their investments here, and whether they intend to consider more deals locally.

  • What’s CED’s role in this community? Last we spoke, you’d indicated that there was a planned move to be a “connector” to out-of-region resources (financial, talent, knowledge, connections, etc.) for growth-stage companies.

This remains our focus.

  • Any progress on hiring the database/data manager? Is CED having to hold off on plans to implement some of those strategic shifts until this position is filled?

We are on target to meet our database conversion timetable of July 31. We have been working with a contractor, and that has been sufficient to meet our needs so far. Our strategic shifts also are on schedule.

  • What’s the future of this report? Will we see a similar one next year (around the same time)?

We intend to release the Innovators Report twice a year, with the next one due in September, around the time of the Tech Venture conference. That will update activity for the first 6 months of 2014. The next report in early 2015 will capture activity for all of 2014.

  • What factors made 2013 a success?

Hard to know conclusively from the numbers alone. As I mentioned, ease in formerly tight capital markets, opportunity for investors to realize gains from their investments, and perhaps more active deal syndication can reasonably be given as hypotheses. We expect to know more as we do more interviews.