“When Scott Wingo started his first company in Raleigh in 1994,
there was little support for high-tech entrepreneurs. “There were
two lawyers in town, two accounting firms,” says Wingo, who started
and sold Stingray Software and AuctionRover.com. “You had to
personally guarantee any loans.”
“Things have changed in RTP [Research Triangle Park], but the
locals aren’t about to kid themselves. This isn’t Silicon Valley
with magnolias. In 1999, two high-tech Triangle companies went
public. In Silicon Valley, it was 250.”
“It helped immensely that one of the Triangle companies that
went public in 1999 was Red Hat (RHAT). The supporter of Linux open
source software had a red-hot stock offering in August that
captured international attention. The stock soared to $151 a
share before falling back to earth earlier this spring. “I think it
really put the Triangle on the map,” says Paul Jones, a partner in
Eno River Investments, a venture fund that specializes in software
and life sciences. Jones was an angel investor in SciQuest (SQST),
the other successful high-tech Triangle IPO of 1999.”