Methodology

How the record is built.

Every company, funding round and signal on this site comes from an original public source: a filing, a government record, a company’s own release or page, a university page, or local reporting. Each funding round and each signal links to its own document. This page says what counts, how each fact is checked, how the totals are computed, and what every table holds, so a number here can be traced back to where it came from.

453

Startups counted

754

Founders linked

$11.0B

Sourced funding

65

Sources read

56 of the 65 sources go from fetch to record with no AI model in between. Sourced funding counts only rounds with a source link, so it is a floor.

Method

What counts, and how it is checked

What is in it

Startups headquartered in Wake, Durham, Orange and Chatham counties and the nearby Wake towns, plus research spinouts built at Duke, UNC or NC State whose university page says so. A company is a counted startup in the core or emerging tier. Exited and enterprise companies are shown with their history and never counted. A company that moved away, closed, or was never based here is kept in the record, hidden, with the reason written on the row.

Where facts come from

Original public sources only: government records (SEC filings, NIH and NSF awards, FDA clearances and recalls, state award rosters), the company’s own releases and pages, university pages, and local reporting. Crunchbase and similar aggregators are not used, because they drop the context an original source carries and their terms are unclear. A funding round or a signal that reaches a public count points to the document it came from.

How a signal is checked

A signal is one dated event taken from one source. It is published as verified in one of three ways: Adam confirmed it; it came from a structured government record matched to a directory company; or the source was read and it names the company and says what the headline says. Anything else waits for review: a source that could not be read, a source that names someone else, or a headline that carries a judgment. A signal is dated to its source, not to the event, so the date can always be checked against the link.

How the funding total is computed

The public total adds up funding rounds, in three steps. Keep rounds whose company is a counted startup. Keep rounds whose source is an absolute https link; a round with no usable source counts for nothing. Keep one row per company, round type and source, the newest when there are copies. Grants, prizes and loans are included and shown separately from equity. A round with no stated amount adds nothing, so the total is a floor.

A company page shows a different figure: the sum of that company’s equity rounds, without grants. The two disagree by design.

How outside records are matched to companies

A government record is matched to a company by its name. An exact match on the normalized name is accepted. A loose match is checked by hand against the city at the time of the award, the project title and the company’s history, and the decision is written down either way. A company whose identity is under review is held out of every new import until the review closes.

What is never inferred

  • A stage from a grant or a filing.
  • A founding year from an incorporation or launch date.
  • A headquarters from a profile location or an event appearance.
  • A total that adds a missing amount as zero.
  • An opinion stored as a fact. Judgments live in marked editor notes, apart from the record.

Data dictionary

What each table holds

The tables behind the public pages, what one row means, and where its facts come from.

Companies companies

One company that is, or was, based in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, RTP or the nearby towns the directory covers.

A company counts as a startup only in the core or emerging tier with an active status. Exited and enterprise companies are shown but never counted; legacy rows are hidden everywhere and carry the reason.

tier
core, emerging, exited, enterprise or legacy.
legacy_reason
Why a hidden row is hidden: moved away, acquired out, closed, never based here, or not placed by any source.
hq_city
Headquarters city, from an original source.
hq_confidence
confirmed, inferred or unknown.
university_affiliation
Duke, UNC or NC State, when the university’s own page shows the company was built there.
founded_year
The year the company started. Incorporation and launch dates are not used in its place.
stage
The last recorded stage. Never inferred from a grant or a filing.
total_funding_usd
Sum of the company’s recorded equity rounds. Excludes grants, and is empty when any equity round lacks an amount.
source_urls
Sources for the company record as a whole.
source_confidence
How firmly the sources support the record.

Where it comes from · A company record lists its sources together: the company’s own site and releases, filings, university pages and local reporting.

Funding rounds funding_rounds

One financing event for one company: an equity round, a loan, a grant or a prize.

The public funding total sums the amounts of rounds whose company is a counted startup and whose source is an absolute https link, one row per company, round type and source. Grants, prizes and debt are included and shown separately.

round_type
Seed, Series A, grant, loan and so on.
amount_usd
Amount in dollars. Empty means unknown; zero is recorded only when the source says zero.
date
The announcement or award date from the source.
lead_investor
The lead named by the source.
other_investors
Other participants named by the source.
source_url
The original source: a release, a filing or a government record. Never Crunchbase.
notes
What the source says that the fields cannot, such as an SEC accession number or a federal award number.

Where it comes from · Each round links to its original source. A round without an https source adds nothing to the public total.

Signals signals

One dated event about a company, taken from one source: a filing, a release, a clearance, an award, a hire, a closure.

A signal is public only when it has a source link, is not waiting for review, and belongs to a company in a visible tier. Its date is the date of the source, not of the underlying event.

headline
What happened, in one line.
signal_type
funding, award, grant, loan, exit, milestone, event and other types.
published_date
The publication or filing date of the source.
source_url
The original source.
verification_state
pending, verified or refuted.
verified_by
Who or what verified it: Adam, a named government record, or a reading of the source that names the company.
verification_notes
What was read, and when, to verify it.

Where it comes from · Each public signal links to the source it was read from, and is dated to that source.

Founders founders

One person who founded or leads a company in the directory.

A founder counts when at least one of their companies is a counted startup. A person attached to two companies is counted once.

name
Full name as the person or company publishes it.
title
Role at the company.
background_summary
A short factual biography.
linkedin_url
Public profile link, when one is recorded.

Where it comes from · Names and roles come from public sources: the company’s own pages, filings, releases and reporting. A school tie carries its own source.

Founder education founder_education

One degree or school tie for one founder.

Used for school breakdowns. A tie counts only with a source.

school_slug
The school.
degree
The degree, when the source names one.
tie_kind
Degree, faculty or other kind of tie.
source_url
Where the tie is stated.
verified_on
The day the source was read.

Where it comes from · Each tie cites the page that states it and the day that page was read.

Investor links investor_companies

One investor’s backing of one company.

Read together with an older list kept on the company record. The two are merged and deduplicated wherever investors are shown.

investor_id
The investor.
company_id
The company.

Where it comes from · A link comes from a round, filing or release that names the investor, or from the directory’s original import.

Jobs jobs

One open role at a directory company, read from the company’s own hiring system.

Listed while open. Enterprise companies never list jobs.

title
The role as posted.
location
As posted.
posted_at_source
The posting date the hiring system reports.
last_checked_at
The last time the role was confirmed open.
closed_at
When the role was confirmed gone.

Where it comes from · Each role is read from the hiring system the company itself links to, and checked again until it closes.

Corrections

When the record is wrong

Tell me. A correction goes back to the source, and the record changes when the source supports it. Changes to the record are announced on the changelog. The principles behind what gets listed are in the operating manual.

Send a correction →