Raleigh and Durham startup hubs come together to form Triangle Innovation Week

With the aim of introducing the Triangle’s newcomers to its growing startup scene, the region’s most prominent startup hubs are launching Triangle Innovation Week.

The series of events, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 20, is in advance of the Innovate Raleigh Summit on Oct. 29, an annual coming together of the region’s startup community.

Clark Rinehart, interim executive director of Innovate Raleigh, said the event series — hosted by the coworking hubs Raleigh Founded, the Loading Dock, American Underground and Venture X — is a chance to showcase the resources available to startups in the Triangle.

For the better part of the past two years, Rinehart said, the Triangle’s startup scene’s ability to meet and share ideas has been curtailed by the pandemic.

“There are a lot of people that moved here and were excited about the Triangle,” he said in an interview, “but then COVID happened. We tried our best to engage those people virtually, but the spirit of Triangle Innovation Week is to give people an opportunity to re-engage.”

It’s also another sign that the region’s leading startup incubators are collaborating more.

Rather than compete against each other, the incubators have joined forces more often during the pandemic, from launching a shared membership model to creating a jobs board for all of their companies to use.

Jess Porta, who leads Raleigh Founded, previously known as HQ Raleigh, said it’s become obvious in recent years that for the Triangle to succeed, organizations in Raleigh and Durham need to work together. For the first time during the pandemic, she said, the region’s startup incubators, coworking hubs and other organizations have started monthly calls to share ideas.

“In the past year,” she said, “this is the most coordinated I have seen us be.”

You can find the schedule for Triangle Innovation Week at triangleinnovationweek.com.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate