RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Serial Triangle entrepreneur Bill Spruill is donating $4 million to the Triangle-based Council for Entrepreneurial Development. It’s the largest gift ever made to the group which focuses on North Carolina’s startup and entrepreneurial economies.
Kelly Rowell, CEO of CED, said Spruill’s investment is crucial to a new growth plan for the group and North Carolina.
“Bill is leading by example of how the region’s successful entrepreneurs pay it forward for future generations,” Rowell said in the announcement. “We are extremely grateful for his investment and excited to share the plan for expansion and impact in the months ahead.”
Spruill is an active CED member, having been named board chair last September and also serving as a mentor.
Council for Entrepreneurial Development names William Spruill as board chair
Last year, Spruill and his partners sold Global Data Consortium to a U.K. firm for more than $300 million. He since has launched 2ndF from which the CED donation will be funded.
2ndF is short for “Second Foundation,” the third novel published of the Foundation Series by American writer Isaac Asimov. In this universe, its namesake group’s mission is to ensure their leader’s plan stays the course.
The money is part of a new initiative from the CED to help develop over 10 years 15 locally based global companies, the CED noted.
“Kelly and her team have created a compelling plan that I can get behind,” Spruill. said in the announcement “This gift will provide the CED team with the resources needed to help the region’s high-growth founders dream bigger, which is one of the central tenets of the 2ndF mission.”
Six months after $300M exit, Global Data Consortium co-founder Bill Spruill unveils ‘family’ venture
As TechWire reported last October, his new effort’s approach has several prongs. The first component is angel investing, or “capital formation.” Largely employing his own funds, he plans to disperse capital to promising early-stage startups, many of whom are led by minority founders.
He also hopes to recruit other angel investors, including what he calls the “GDC Mafia,” the 25 current and past employees of the company who became newly minted millionaires through the deal.
Among early recipients: ten local founders who received an all-expense-paid trip to attend the Business of Software conference in Boston in September. Black Dollar Corp., a Black-owned business directory and retail shop led by Johnny Hackett, landed $100,000 to pay for salaries for three employees at its flagship site, The Factory, through 2023.
“CED helped me very early in my career and gave me access to a network of other entrepreneurs who gave me the inspiration I needed to build my company, Global Data Consortium (GDC),” Spruill said in Tuesday’s announcement. “I’m now in a position to pay it forward and hope that this gift will encourage other successful founders in the community to join me in the effort to mentor and support the next generations of founders.”
