Local Limelight: Entrepreneur and investor Scot Wingo
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo illustration: Axios Visuals. Photo courtesy of Spiffy
Axios Raleigh's latest Local Limelight guest is Scot Wingo, the founder and CEO of the on-demand car care startup Spiffy and one of the most active investors in the area through his Triangle Tweener Fund.
🍽 Favorite place to eat in the Triangle: Garland. I am not huge into cauliflower, like it's not my go-to. But there’s something about it [at Garland], it's almost addictive.
🐦 First read in the morning: Twitter. I am usually checking out the financial folks.
📕 Last great book he read: "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow.
⛵Favorite vacation spot: Topsail Island.
⛵Favorite vacation spot: Topsail Island.
🎓 How he ended up in the Triangle: I am from Aiken, S.C., and went to the University of South Carolina for undergrad. Then I went to grad school at N.C. State and fell in love with the Triangle.
💸 What do you think the Triangle is missing: More initial public offerings from local companies. Because to me that's a big marketing event, and it creates big brands like Red Hat and Bandwidth — and hopefully Pendo. It would be the best thing for our startup ecosystem.
🌌 How do you unwind at the end of the day: I like to hang out with my kids and go to whatever events they're doing. Or watch a little Star Wars.
💰 What are you looking forward to right now: Well, I've started the Tweener Fund, which invests only in Triangle early-stage startups.
We've made like 40 investments so far. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this experiment turns out. Hopefully my thesis is right that the index of Triangle startups is going to be very successful.
🎧 Go-to podcast: "All-In Podcast".
Local startups he's excited about: They are two I have invested in. One is [Chapel Hill-based] RepVue, which lets sales reps rate their current job, say what they're looking for and help them find the right next gig.
The other is [Raleigh-based] Hip eCommerce, which creates marketplaces for collectibles.