Read about two local entrepreneurs take on the collaborative environment in our area. Innovate Raleigh isn’t the only organization hosting entrepreneurial focused events, across the Triangle hundreds of entrepreneurial-focused events are hosted each year to help connect and educate those in the field. In addition, there are organizations like Innovate Raleigh that act as a catalyst, connector and convener by bringing together entrepreneurs, corporations, community leaders, and government at year-round events and theme-driven summits. They stated Mayors need to lead innovation to get things done. At SXSW, the 'Bootstrapping a City Innovation System' session spoke to the importance of public-private partnerships and also the role mayors play in the innovation ecosystem. The accelerator is a joint initiative between companies like Red Hat, HQ Raleigh, and the City of Raleigh and enables teams of entrepreneurs to access potential clients, industry experts, internal corporate resources, capital connections, as well as the opportunity for teams to apply for city funds, if they locate their ventures in Raleigh. In the past 2 years, the Raleigh Innovators Program has been a great example of private-public partnerships. The City of Raleigh helps propel this collaboration thanks to Mayor Nancy McFarlane’s goal of having Raleigh become a top five hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. The success and continued growth of Raleigh as an innovation hub can be partly attributed to the collaboration that happens in the area. Thanks to the likes of those equity deals and a growing pool of top talent, the Research Triangle has approximately 100 middle-stage high growth companies, and 49% of those companies call Raleigh home. North Carolina as a whole saw 191 equity deals in 2015, with 70% of those deals being in the Research Triangle.
Raleigh has the benefit of being part of the larger Research Triangle innovation landscape with 16 different cities and towns bringing forth new ideas and concepts and attracting talent from all over the world. In addition, over the last 5 years, startup companies in Greater Raleigh have generated economic activity of over $1.1 billion from IPOs and over $9.2 billion in acquisitions. In the last 3 years alone, startups in Raleigh have raised over $300 million in Angel and Venture Capital investment. Mayor Johnson was a panelist at SXSW and spoke to this theme during his 'Bootstrapping Your City's Innovation Ecosystem' session.Ĭurrently, Raleigh is home to more than 500 startup companies, totaling 2,500 jobs in a wide range of industry sectors including Software, Life Sciences, Consumer Products, Design-Media, and the Internet of Things. Part of this is why we attended SXSW, to learn more about continuing our growth as an entrepreneurial region and how other areas rose to prominence. Mayor Johnson's theme during his time as Chair of the US Conference of Mayors spoke to cities like Raleigh as 3.0 Cities where they are hubs of entrepreneurship, innovation and must create the next economy. Raleigh has long been associated with innovation thanks to corporate tech giants like IBM and Cisco in Research Triangle Park and more recently Red Hat and Citrix in downtown Raleigh, but within the last few years, Raleigh has emerged as a hotbed of innovation springing out of the local startup community. Coworking Spaces, Incubators & Accelerators
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