This quarter, new Tweener Fund investments landed in Charlotte, Wilmington, Winston-Salem, Asheville, and, for the first time ever, Greenville. When we announced that the Triangle Tweener Fund is now the NC Tweener Fund and going statewide in Q1, we introduced our regional map and now 3 quarters later we have solid coverage across all regions.
In this post, we detail the new portfolio companies, what they are building and give updates on what else we’re seeing in the NC startup ecosystem as we meet founders from all around North Carolina.
“It’s a really strange time, and we started feeling this a little bit in Q2, but Q3 is kind of where it’s come home to roost. I’m kind of calling it a K-shaped startup economy.”
Thank You, LPs 🙌
Before we jump into the recap: thank you to our investors! None of this happens without you. With your support, we’ve now made 262 investments across 189 companies, for $12.7M invested in NC founders. None of this would be possible if accredited investors didn’t commit their capital to NC Tweener Fund.
Always open for new investors/LPs!
Do you want to join our 200 lifetime Limited Partners (or LPs, what we call our investors in VC) in helping us support NC startups? We’re structured as a rolling fund, which means, unlike closed funds that only let investors in every 5-10 years, we are ‘always open’ for new LPs. Here are the details:
Must be an accredited investor - SEC rule, not ours
1yr commitment, $30,000 for the year or $7,500/Q
1% management fee, 20% carry, and a small AngelList administrative fee
For more details - visit www.tweenerfund.com where you can see our pitch and hit the invest button to get started!
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
NC Tweener Fund Q3 'Read’ on the NC Startup Ecosystem
At Tweener Fund we are in a unique position. We’re on over 180 NC startup cap tables and we’re having hundreds of conversations with founders for potential investments each quarter. This gives us a unique perspective on what’s going on in the NC’s startup economy each Q. What we saw in Q3 was a lot of change happening quickly, all driven by AI.
The startup economy is K-shaped
Early and growth stage capital is flowing almost entirely to AI, and companies founded before 2022 are largely shut out of new funding. Even inside AI there’s a split. The strongest AI-native companies are growing fast and profitably, and some aren’t raising at all. At the other end, there’s a flood of very early ideas. At one recent pitch competition we counted four or more “AI CFO” pitches.
GTM: Outbound is broken, and in-person is back
AI-generated outreach has flipped the signal-to-noise ratio. We’d estimate about 90-95% of what lands in an inbox is now AI slop noise. Cold email, cold calls, and LinkedIn outreach have mostly stopped working. Founders are moving that budget to inbound content, trade shows, and showing up in person. We are seeing this firsthand at ReFiBuy: trade shows cost more, but the share of budget going to sales and marketing as an overall % hasn’t really changed. It has just moved between buckets (outbound→tradeshow). We’re seeing the same thing in Tweener-land, which is a big reason we were on the road so much this quarter.
Fintech is climbing, and Wilmington is rising with it
Health tech is still our #1 category, but fintech moved up to #2 this quarter, driven by deal flow from Charlotte and from the Live Oak/nCino fueled Fintech startup explosion in Wilmington. Wilmington is now our #2 market outside the Triangle for new investments in 2026.
With pre-Tweeners now outnumbering Tweeners in our deal flow by 3 to 1 or more, we’re staying selective. We’re looking for clear moats and enough runway to reach the next milestone. Proprietary data is still the moat we like most. We don’t invest in ‘zero revenue/idea-stage’ pre-tweener, we’re looking for $300-800k ARR, a round that is half committed and a high-growth trajectory.
That’s our Q3 “State of the State”, here’s the specifics on our Q3 investments:
Q3 NC Tweener Fund Investment Highlights
Our Tweener Fund Q2 2026 Snapshot:
$400K invested
9 total investments - 8 new, 1 follow-on
4 Tweener / 5 Pre-Tweener
Year to date for 2026, that’s 36 investments and roughly $1.6M deployed into NC startups.
Introducing our Q3 Fresh New Investments!
In Q3, we added 8 new companies to the portfolio, including our first-ever investment in Greenville:
Abra (PT) - AI-powered procurement automation for mid-market organizations. (Charlotte)
FinFuego (PT) - An AI CFO for mid-market companies, built for revenue recognition and advanced financial operations. A Live Oak spinout. (Wilmington)
HiveTracks (PT) - Started as software for beekeepers, and now licenses its proprietary pollinator and environmental data to companies for ESG reporting. (Boone)
LeftMain REI (T) - CRM for residential real estate investment groups. (Charlotte)
Define AI (PT) - The Lean Product Playbook, implemented as AI. Co-founded by Pendo co-founder Eric Boduch and Dan Olsen, the book’s author. (Raleigh)
Impact Card (PT) - A university-branded credit card that shares revenue with schools and gives athletic departments fan and alumni data. Launching with ECU. (Greenville)
mPATH Health (T) - An AI platform that finds patients overdue for cancer screenings and guides them through getting screened. (Winston-Salem)
Phyzify (T) - Turns AI-generated designs into physical art, from woven fabric to sculpture. (Asheville)
Existing Investment add-ons
Tweener Fund also made an additional investment in 1 portfolio company:
Details:
Nimble Energy (T) (Carrboro) - We love how Nimble founder, Jeff Sloplop, is building and were excited to support the company again.
Q3 Tweener Events
This quarter was tradeshows season, so Robbie and Scot were all across the state, and each Q we host our founders and LPs to a happy hour… Here’s the highlights, you can read our trip reports on
If in-person is the new go-to-market, we took our own advice. Q3 had us in the Triangle, Winston-Salem, and Wilmington:
Q3 Tweener Happy Hour - Hosted on Balentine’s sky deck, with thanks to Balentine for sponsoring. Great turnout, and the sunset stole the show.
Converge South (Winston-Salem) - A two-day, early-stage event split between biotech and tech. We came away impressed by Winston-Salem’s city-led innovation district and the civic and private investment behind entrepreneurship there. Scot wrote a two-part recap that you can view here (Pt1) (Pt2).
Investor Buzz-In (Wilmington, Sept 10) - Robbie represented Tweener with a reverse pitch at the 4th annual event hosted by Jim Roberts, and joined an AI panel. Robbie’s recap can be viewed here.
Bank of America Innovation Summit (Durham) - Giulia attended. Dan Olsen, author of The Lean Product Playbook, opened the day, and it closed with a discussion of the Triangle’s infrastructure and where its tech scene is heading. Giulia’s recaps of the summit can be viewed here (Pt1) (Pt2).
Looking Ahead to Q4
We’re heading into the end of the year with a clear plan: keep the map growing, stay picky on pre-tweeners, and keep showing up in person. We’re tracking about 10 tweeners across the Triangle, Triad, Charlotte, and Wilmington, plus a few rounds that slipped from Q3 and should close this quarter. Our Q4 happy hour is in the works (location TBD), and we’ll share details as the date gets closer.
If you’re building something in NC, whether you’re in Greenville or Weaverville, we’d love to hear from you.
Become a Sponsor
Would your company benefit from exposure to NC’s fastest-growing Seed → Growth startups?
Our audience is made up of NC founders and operators, primarily at startups doing over $1M/year and many much larger. When a company hits Tweener status, they’ve got real traction, funding (usually), a growing team, and momentum.
Thanks to strong demand, we’re upgrading our sponsorship opportunities across Tweener Times, Tweener Talks, and more.
If you’re looking to connect with this high-impact community, now’s the time. Send us a message or an email to contact@tweenerfund.com.
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