Frank Vinluan

Sometimes the newest medical innovations find their inspiration from old technology. Wilmington startup GO2’s inspiration came from an old-fashioned sewing machine. GO2 has developed a device whose pumping action improves blood flow in patients. The concept came from a Wilmington physical therapist who was working with a patient troubled by mobility problems. GO2 CEO Jim Hundley Jr. said the physical therapist was trying to find a way to help the patient while the patient remained seated. He thought of an old-fashioned sewing machine powered by a foot pedal. “He actually used an old sewing machine,” Hundley said. “The patient...

ChannelAdvisor (NYSE:ECOM) checked out of the fourth quarter with $20.5 million in revenue, a record for the e-commerce software company and a 30 percent increase over fourth quarter results a year ago. The company also continues to hire at an aggressive pace. The results exceeded the Morrisville company’s expectations and marked the first time its sales had ever topped $20 million in a quarter. CEO Scot Wingo attributed the results to the company riding the broader trends of consumer behavior. “More and more consumers are choosing e-commerce over traditional retailing,” he said on a conference call with analysts to...

Appia, which has already helped drive more than 70 million mobile app installs, is now laying the groundwork to broaden its reach even more. The Durham startuplaunched on Wednesday a self-service tool for app and game developers allowing them to sign up and run ads to help their app get discovered. An independent developer or a student in a dorm room could sign up with Appia and be ready to run ads for their app the same day. “With this release we’re basically opening the floodgates up to anyone,” CEO Jud Bowman said. Appia calls itself a “mobile user...

Fourteen years ago, Dude Solutions was an unknown startup operating from a Cary apartment. Today, the company co-founded by Kent Hudson and Lee Prevost is still in Cary. But now the company stakes a claim as an industry leader offering software to manage buildings. And now the company has a $100 million financial commitment to grow that business even more. Schools, universities and hospitals are among the customers that use Dude’s cloud-based software to optimize maintenance, energy use and other aspects of their facilities. The company now has more than 2 million users, mostly in the United States and...

North Carolina must fill 229,000 jobs in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – by 2018. But the Tar Heel state has a long way to go to prepare the students of today for this workforce of tomorrow, according to findings in a new report by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice. North Carolina lags other states in STEM achievement, the report shows. The National Assessment of Education Progress ranks North Carolina 8th graders 40th in science and 21st in math. Just 26 percent of North Carolina high school students are interested in a STEM major or career....

In the days and hours leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend, out-of-town fans will wander New Jersey looking for a place to eat or maybe a watering hole for a drink. A mobile app developed by a Raleigh startup will help them find their destinations. Besides mapping out the route, Yillio also considers a user’s preferences and points out recommended establishments along the way. Users already have several choices of location-based offerings, such as Yelp and Foursquare. But Yillio co-founder and President Tully Ryan describes Yillio as route-based marketing. (The founders already have a patent on some...

Biogen Idec’s (NASDAQ:BIIB) revenue soared to $2.0 billion in the fourth quarter, a 39 percent increase driven in part by the addition of Tecfidera, the latest product in the company’s multiple sclerosis drug portfolio. Tecfidera, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last March, accounted for $398 million in revenue in the quarter. Cambridge, Mass-based Biogen’s top MS drug Avonex represented $751 million in sales, flat compared to the prior year. But Tysabri sales shot up 45 percent to $427 million, an increase that reflects Biogen now recording all of sales of that drug after completing its...

Square 1 Financial has not yet said how many shares it will offer for its planned initial public offering nor has it given a price range for the stock but the company does say it will direct the vast majority of IPO proceeds to its profitable bank. In an updated SEC filing, Square 1 Financial, the holding company for Square 1 Bank, said it expects to downstream roughly 90 percent of net proceeds of the IPO offering to the bank subsidiary. Durham-based Square 1 publicly disclosed its intent to go public on Jan. 7, describing in securities filings plans...

Global research and analytics firm Evalueserve is putting the finishing touches on its new downtown Raleigh office, a location expected to eventually employ 400 people. Evalueserve provides services outsourced business services to companies in a range of industries. The Raleigh office is expected to meet growing demand that the company has seen, particularly from clients on the East Coast. “Right now, we’re doing our final testing for IT and other stuff,” said Amit Shanker, site manager for the site. “We’re opening on Monday.” Evalueserve’s business follows on the trend of business IT outsourcing that started in the late 1980s...