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	Your Full Guide to the Inaugural Raleigh-Durham Climate Week Posted Yesterday tl;dr The first Raleigh-Durham Climate Week will run from November 2 to 6, with more than 30 free events across the Triangle area that focus on new ideas for fighting climate change. Each day has a different focus: Monday has tours and hands-on learning, Tuesday helps people learn how to start a career in climate work, Wednesday teaches founders business skills, and Thursday covers how climate companies get funding. The week ends Friday with a casual coffee meetup, and anyone interested can sign up for events at raleighdurhamclimateweek.com.
	Picture In My Head: AI-Powered Custom Apparel Brings Childlike Wonder To Life Posted Yesterday tl;dr Picture In My Head (PIMH) is a startup founded by Bert Nowell, who was inspired when his three-year-old daughter described her imagination by saying, "I just have this picture in my head." Its AI-powered app turns kids' doodles, photos, and artwork into patterns that can be printed on clothing made in Los Angeles, and customers can get their products in as little as two weeks. Although PIMH is aimed mostly at kids, adults can enjoy it too, and Nowell hopes to work with schools so children's art projects can become something that lasts.
	Wilmington’s AugWork AI Helps Users Build Agentic Employees For Specific Roles Posted Wednesday tl;dr Robert Chapman, who has worked in web design and consulting since 2007, noticed that many businesses don't know how to use AI beyond acting like a "Super Google," and that many employees are afraid to try it. To help, he started AugWork AI in Wilmington, a company that lets businesses create "AI employees" by uploading a job description, building a persona, and connecting tools like Gmail or Microsoft Teams. These AI workers handle repetitive tasks so people can focus on more important work, and the company, which mostly serves construction and skilled trade businesses, charges $4,000 a month for the first AI employee and $3,000 for each one after.
	Kevel’s $52M Raise: Doubling Down On “Transparent AI” And Building Globally From Durham Posted Tuesday tl;dr Kevel, a technology company based in Durham, North Carolina, just raised $52 million from investors, bringing its total funding to over $100 million. The company helps stores like Dollar General and Chewy run their own advertising on their websites and apps, and it started in 2010 as a different company called Adzerk before changing its focus. Kevel plans to use the money to grow around the world, hire more workers, and build "transparent AI," which means artificial intelligence that explains why it makes its choices instead of keeping them secret.
	Megan Rowe Tells Us “What’s Good” With AI-Powered Event Discovery, “Doing It Scared” As A Founder, And Her Belgian Malinois Posted Monday tl;dr What's Good is an AI-powered website that gathers events from hundreds of sources so people can see what's happening in a city, and it now works with tourism boards in about 20 cities after starting in Wilmington. Founder Megan Rowe says the company has grown a local audience of 100,000 without paying for ads, makes money from both its news site and its software, and pays for its growth with what it earns. Her next big challenge is growing to more cities while keeping the quality high, and she says her best advice to her younger self is to trust her instincts and "do it scared."
	Monday Mix: Founder Horror Stories, Idea to Action, Wilmington Investor Roadshow, and Much More! Posted Monday tl;dr This week's Monday Mix (October 26th) is full of spooky-themed fun and events for people who work in startups and technology, and you can also listen to it on the GrepBeat podcast. On Wednesday, October 28th, there are lots of events, including a workshop to turn startup ideas into real plans, a talk about staying flexible in the age of AI, and networking happy hours in places like Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte. The week ends on Friday, October 30th, with a Halloween party in Durham where founders share their scariest business horror stories.
	Friday Fix: Curated Clinical, Kevel’s $52M Raise, Launch KPMG’s Cohort 4, and More! Posted October 23, 2026 tl;dr GrepBeat.com is a website that covers startup and tech news, and every Friday a show called the Friday Fix helps people catch up on the week's biggest stories. In the October 23rd edition, host David Schwartz talked about features on two companies, Curated Clinical and Pellucid, plus a recap of a demo day where new startups showed off their work to the public. He also shared the big news that a company called Kevel raised $52 million to help it grow, and you can hear the whole thing on The GrepBeat Podcast.
	Cary’s Pellucid Aims to Create “New Category of Tech” For Procurement Posted October 23, 2026 tl;dr Pellucid Network is a new startup, founded by Nick Miller, that helps big companies buy software through online marketplaces more easily by connecting the teams that find software with the people who approve the purchases. Miller got the idea from his work in the Army, at the venture firm In-Q-Tel, and with Amazon Web Services, where he saw that slow buying processes kept organizations from using new technology quickly. The small team of three has raised its first round of funding, plans to charge subscriptions starting around $20,000, and is focused on perfecting its product and winning customers before it expects to meet its revenue goals in 2027.
	Launch Powered by KPMG Accelerator Holds Demo Day For 4th Cohort Posted October 21, 2026 tl;dr On Tuesday night, the fourth group of startups finished the Launch Powered by KPMG accelerator, a six-week program that helps new companies find customers, improve their products, and plan how to sell them. The companies presented their ideas to the public at a Demo Night in Chapel Hill. Their projects included an app that tracks food to spot inflammation, a business that turns trash like glass and styrofoam into concrete, and tools that use AI for health care, air quality, robotics, and medicine research.
	Curated Clinical Uses AI To Bring Community Voices Into Clinical Trials Posted October 19, 2026 tl;dr Allison Mathews started a company called Curated Clinical that uses an online platform to ask everyday people for their ideas on making health research, like medical trials, safer and more trustworthy, especially for communities whose voices are often left out. The platform uses crowdsourcing, which means asking the public to help solve a problem, and it has an AI tool that sorts people's answers into themes and helps companies and community groups turn the best ideas into real programs. Mathews, who has spent over ten years doing this kind of work around the world, says the platform keeps people's data private and safe, and it has already signed its first partners, with a test run planned for November 2026.

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