The Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW) hosted its fourth annual Investor Buzz-In Thursday, drawing a crowd of investors, entrepreneurs, organizers and founders at Cape Fear Community College’s Union Station. 

Hosted by NEW founder Jim Roberts, the Investor Buzz-In focused on strategies for founders seeking capital, networking, collaboration, growth opportunities and ways to build up Wilmington’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

The event, which Roberts noted was the largest in NEW’s 11-year history, drew a crowd from across 19 states. Roberts emphasized that Wilmington has become a model ecosystem, drawing interest from across the country. 

“It’s really difficult when we don’t have the kind of venture capital funding that the Triangle has,” said Roberts at the event. “But our companies are still growing, even though they’re kind of bootstrapped and so forth.”

A key thread among sessions was Wilmington’s emergence as a startup hub at a time when artificial intelligence has transformed how founders build businesses and develop new technologies.  

“The ability to build technology quickly to innovate has never been at a higher velocity,” said Taylor McLemore, a venture partner at Launchpad, a South Carolina-based tech startup accelerator and venture fund. 

The panels included investors such as Robbie Allen of the NC Tweener Fund, Abby Phillips of the Wolfpack Investor Network and Greg Brown of the Charlotte Angel Fund, as well as representation from local startups, including Morris Nguyen of Predicate and Brett Lanier from Isosceles Pharma. 

“We have a very vibrant, healthy ecosystem that is really promoting entrepreneurship and helping founders really elevate their game,” said Richard Stroupe, founder and managing partner of Cape Fear Ventures, “but obviously one of the most important things we need is capital.”

One of the components mentioned as necessary to continue establishing Wilmington as a tech and startup hub was core infrastructure or programming, including and beyond what already exists in the area. Investors mentioned Research Triangle Park-headquartered Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), a nonprofit focused on connecting startups with resources, talent and capital, as an example. 

“You’ve got a lot of different service entities in this Wilmington area that are really instrumental in being able to build this up,” said Mark Friedman, co-founder of the RTP Angel Fund. “But you need a cohesive force that CED was in its early days… something like that is so critical for being able to put together an ecosystem that’s going to serve both the entrepreneurs and the investors and all the people in between.”

“Building an investment ecosystem is the long‑tail game,” added Jeremy Turner, a fund manager at Appalachian Investors Alliance. “There’s a lot of education that needs to occur early on for everyone in the ecosystem.” 

Stan Parker, general partner of the Winston-Salem WSPR fund, noted that the fund played a key role in growing the entrepreneurial community in the Winston-Salem area. Though Winston-Salem was an area of concentrated wealth, it was slow to invest in startup companies, Parker said. 

“So the positioning of WSPR was very interesting in that we’re going to do this to support mostly Winston‑Salem‑based companies,” Parker said. “They’re going to create jobs here. This is going to be a growth engine for the community.”

Mike McGuire, who sits on the board of directors of Charlotte-based AvidXchange, noted that an entrepreneurial “ecosystem” is expansive and not limited solely to founders and investors. 

“To me, the ecosystem includes everybody around the organization,” McGuire said. “Your family, your advisors, your attorneys, your accountants… I’m constantly expanding my ecosystem even though I’m retired.” 

Other investors at the event emphasized the importance of networking and connectivity, noting that North Carolina has a very collaborative statewide angel and venture capital network. 

Christy Swann, the founder of Wilmington-based RCOAST, a startup collecting data to mitigate erosion on coastlines, presented at the event and announced she had closed her company’s pre-seed funding round at $945K, largely due to the connections she formed around the state.  

“Capital is looking for deal flow,” said Greg Brown, administrator of the Charlotte Angel Fund. “Those of you founders in the room, if you're good to great, capital will find you.”