DURHAM – This month’s Startup Crawl kicked off at American Underground on Monday night, helping launch one busy week in the Bull City.
It comes at a busy time for the tech hub, which is also set to host a slew of events later this week – including Black Wall Street Homecoming and Google for Entrepreneurs Exchange: Black Founders (GFE) plus the Art of Cool festival.
The excitement and anticipation was palpable, as around 100 people gathered on the rooftop terrace to mingle in unseasonably warm temps, many coming from out of town for the week’s lineup.
- More coverage: Meet the startups featured at the Startup Crawl
Among them was Adedayo Aderibigbe, who lives in San Francisco and works as a Product Operations Lead at Google. He’s in town to serve as a mentor for GFE, a week-long immersion program focused on addressing the funding gaps for startups led by black founders.
Big week in Durham
- Black Wall Street Homecoming is back: 3 days of networking, presentations & more
- Black Founders Exchange program returns to Durham during Black Wall Street Homecoming
- Art of Cool Festival set for weekend
“This is amazing,” he said, taking in the scene on the open deck with sweeping views of Durham’s cityscape in the background.
“I’m getting just as much out of the program as anybody else. The fantastic thing is the ecosystem that they’ve built at American Underground. It’s showing the vibrant Southern culture of startup. Coming from Silicon Valley, I’m just really impressed in terms of a lot of the opportunities outside of the Bay for startups the way it’s scaled.”
It was little more than a year ago that The American Underground, which is owned by WRAL TechWire parent Capitol Broadcasting, acquired Big Top, a local startup that was an events company and fledgling jobs platform.
Since then, it has evolved to a software company and leading online hub for local startups.
Last month, it launched a new subscription-based model that gives members access to a “hyper-focused” networking platform.
“Everyone feels the buzz and energy of what’s happening here,” said Big Top’s director Molly Demarest.
