In Feb 2026, we partnered with NC IDEA to take Tweener Fund state-wide and it became the NC Tweener Fund. We announced in Wilmington, we live in the Triangle and now we’re starting to roam the various regions of the state to meet the other startup ecosystems. In today’s post, we’re going to report on our roadtrip to the Triad region’s Winston Salem, where we met hundreds of startups and were impressed by all the activity going on in this part of the Great State of NC!
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Winston Salem Converge South 2026 Trip Report
Last week Tweener Fund attended Converge South 2026 and in this part of our road trip, we’re going to talk about what’s going on in the Winston Salem Startup Ecosystem.
About Converge South
Started in 2016, Converge South, now 10 years old, is a two day investor fly-in/pitch event held in Winston Salem’s innovation district.
There are three tracks:
HealthTech/ BioTech
Artificial intelligence / B2B Saas
Food / Beverage/ Agtech
The event also featured over 125 investors, 150 startups pitching (many more were working the rooms) and well over 500 attendees. I’d peg it at 750-800, but being in several building sit was hard to get a bead on how many people there were - every event we attended was jammed.
Winston Salem’s Innovation Quarter
The first thing you notice in Winston Salem, is the city ‘gets it’.
For example, as you head down towards the downtown area, on Research Dr. you are met with signage everywhere that tells you exactly what that area is for:
In every building in the Innovation Quarter there are maps detailing all the buildings, assets that supports startups and more:
Here you can see there’s a three phase plan that includes mixed use building, greenways and connectivity to not only the Tier 2 research school of Wake Forest, but to Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) as well.
Converge South’s Three Main Buildings
For the show, we spent most of our time in three buildings:
500 W 5th
Wake Forest Biotech Place
Bailey Power Plant
Bailey Power Plant
In 1940, the building was built for the RJR Tobacco company to run the cigarette companies facility’s steam and electricity. It was preserved and in 2018 converted to be part of the Innovation district. Inside it features a co-working facility and an open well-lit atrium for events.
This is where the Mainstage for this leg of the Converge South content was held. It has a cool retro industrial almost ‘steam punk’ feel to it with a lot of modern additions added to the mix giving it a very cool ‘past meets the future’ vibe.
Innovative Tenants in the Power Plant
Note for Triangle startup ecosystem folks, The Sparq co-working facility is amazing and has a partnership with the Raleigh/Cary founded coworking folks, so you can come for a nomadic work session to see for yourself! Other tenants include:
Wake Forest Innovations - the WF tech-transfer group
CML Microsystems - a semiconductor (wireless and flash-memory controllers) company that moved their HQ into the Power Plant.
Wake Forest Biotech Place
Being a software person, I’ve been in many Biotech buildings and often wonder: “Am I going to catch some derivative of ebola in here?” They usually are 1000 years old, have lots of weird smells and labs and are dark and drab.
The WF Biotech Place is made of all glass bricks which is pretty cool, but what’s really amazing is the building’s atrium:
Here you can see through the roof through the metal and glass structure giving it tons of natural light and a very modern feel. You can see the shared biolab offices, and labs through that surround the atrium. At one end of this very long atrium were the startup exhibits and another keynote stage was on the other end.
500 W 5th - The Vertical Startup Factory
500 W 5th is a 18 story building that one of the organizers of Converge South described as a Vertical Startup Factory. One of the startup ecosystem’s biggest Benefactors is a car dealership. Ok, not just any car dealership, the Flow Automotive Company, HQ’s in Winston Salem, but runs over 50 dealerships across the SE. Mr. Flow (Don), is a big supporter of entrepreneurship and it’s his vision that bought 500 W 5th to live.
In 2017, Flow acquired the building, and put over $10m renovating it for both their own HQ, but also as a centerpiece for the innovation district. The vision for the first 6 floors is:
Incubator - The lower floors house the Winston Starts incubator
Angel Investing - The region’s top angel group, Winston Salem Partners Roundtable (WSPR) features ~100 accredited investors that operate and meet out of the building, where you can imagine they serendipitously mix with all the startup acrivity.
Coworking - Flywheel, the Converge South facilitator and major sponsor, is next, providing the incubated startups a place to work.
Support - There are supporting orgs like Liberty Mutual and a later stage fund called River Park Group that operate out of the building as well.
From 6 on are larger suites such that a company could literally be conceived, incubated, be funded, move to coworking and then ‘move on up’ to the higher floors for more and more space.
Up Next…
We hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of Winston Salem’s Innovation Quarter and Converge South’s three main locations. In part 2, we’ll cover some of the content we were able to attend and talk about the many many many company pitches we were able to hear or judge.