RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – With weekly updates to keep content fresh, WRAL TechWire’s Triangle Startup Guide offers an up-to-date resource package for anyone looking to start or grow a business in the Triangle area.

Local startup founders and business owners can use the guide to find new investors and funding sources, accelerators and mentorship programs, incubators, networking groups, events and much more.

The largest section of the guide is the Inspiration, Advice and More Resources section, featuring a mix of podcasts, blogs, thought leadership, market research reports and other resources—all by and for local entrepreneurs.

Today, we’ve added a brand new resource to this section: The Angel Resource Institute’s 2020 HALO Report, which offers an inside look at the latest angel investing trends across the U.S.

The 2020 report analyzes 2,198 transactions, focusing on seed and Series A-stage companies. It shows that the Southeast is the country’s second most active angel investor region, accounting for nearly 16% of deals. The report also notes that early-stage life science and health care companies in the Raleigh/Durham area appear to be sourcing funds from outside investors in California, New York and Chicago.

Other recent additions to the Triangle Startup Guide:

Every week, we update the guide with new resources for local entrepreneurs. If we missed something, please feel free to suggest it for inclusion. You can email me directly or use this contact form.

Here’s a review of the latest additions we’ve made in recent weeks:

  • We added Test Flight Pitch Practice to the Accelerators & Mentorship Programs section of the guide. Test Flight Pitch Practice is an opportunity for early-stage startups to hone their pitch and get valuable feedback from an audience of angel investors, funding groups, customers and other reviewers.
  • We added Duke University’s MEDx-Biomedical Engineering Medical Device Design Program to the Competitions, Grants & Other Funding Sources section of the guide. In this program, teams of undergraduate students from Duke’s Department of Biomedical Engineering will build out medical device concepts proposed by Duke University Medical Center physicians, nurses and other clinical professionals.
  • We added the National Venture Capital Association’s model legal document resource to the Inspiration, Advice & More Resources section of the guide. The organization provides legal document templates to free up time for entrepreneurs and investors to focus on growing their ventures. Designed to be used in venture capital financings, the legal model templates include items such as term sheets, stock purchase agreements, voting agreements, management rights letters, and more.
  • We added NEXT Venture Pitch to the Competitions, Grants & Other Funding section of the guide. Held in Greenville, South Carolina, this popular pitch event gathers entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors and business leaders from across the Carolinas and offers an opportunity for startups in the southeast to refine their pitch and gain attention from new investors. This year’s NEXT Venture Pitch program will be held on Sept. 16.
    • We added Duke MEDx’s High-Risk, High-Impact Challenge. Run by the university’s cross-disciplinary innovation initiative, MEDx, this program provides up to three awards ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 to early career researchers for interdisciplinary projects tackling human health issues.
    • The Launch Place recently unveiled its upcoming Big Launch Challenge pitch competition, noting that the program has awarded $159,000 to 14 companies over its eight-year history. We added this milestone to Big Launch Challenge’s line in the Competitions, Grants & Other Funding section.
  • In the COVID-19 Relief/Support section, we added the North Carolina Humanities’ American Rescue Plan, which is now accepting applications for two grant programs supporting nonprofit or governmental organizations experiencing pandemic-related hardships. The programs offer $5,000 to $20,000 to be used for either programming/projects or operating support.