North Carolina, consistently rated as a top tech hub in the US, has seen its profile grow even further thanks to Red Hat-IBM deal and Epic Games' $1.25B round
Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News : Tweets: @edpnc and @nchousespeaker Tweets: @edpnc : With $2.57B of venture funding in NC startups in 2018, “North Carolina is quietly, and resoundingly, becoming a real competitor to Silicon Valley” according to @crunchbasenews. http://news.crunchbase.com/... Speaker Tim Moore / @nchousespeaker : North Carolina Is Rising As An Entrepreneurial Hub: Venture capital funding up 400% since 2013 as “the state has made a name for itself in the tech and startup community...just the beginning of a whole new chapter for North Carolina.” http://news.crunchbase.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
North Carolina's 2018 breakout — $2.57B in venture funding, up 400% since 2013 — caps an arc that runs from embarrassment to validation. In 2016, PayPal scrapped a planned Charlotte facility over the state's discriminatory LGBT law (dropping a 400-worker project), showing how policy could cost the state deals; by 2018, Apple was reportedly scouting North Carolina for a major campus alongside Northern Virginia (quietly exploring sites there).
The Crunchbase News piece frames the Red Hat-IBM acquisition and Epic Games' $1.25B round as proof points that the state now competes for headline deals, not just back-office campuses — with House Speaker Tim Moore citing the funding surge as evidence the state's entrepreneurial chapter is just beginning.
First-order effects
- Epic Games' $1.25B round and IBM's absorption of Raleigh-based Red Hat put two flagship companies and their capital directly in the state, giving local founders anchor employers, acquirers, and talent pools that previously required a move to the coasts.
- State leadership gets a marketable proof point: Moore and economic-development groups like EDPNC can pitch the 400% funding growth to recruit both startups and corporate campuses.
Second-order effects
- Apple's reported site search becomes easier to close in North Carolina's favor once the state can point to Epic and Red Hat as proof of a deep talent base — a bet the related coverage suggests paid off with its later multi-billion-dollar investment plan anchored by a 3,000-employee NC campus ($1B+ campus commitment).
- Peer Southeast hubs feel the competition directly: Atlanta's rise, built on Georgia Tech talent rather than blockbuster rounds (Atlanta's hub emergence), now has a rival claiming the region's largest funding totals.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, venture capital geography structurally decentralizes: mega-rounds and acquisitions landing outside Silicon Valley normalize secondary hubs as places where billion-dollar outcomes happen, not just where costs are low.
- The PayPal episode versus the 2018 surge sketches a durable lesson for state governments — business climate and social policy are now scored together by relocating employers, making legislative choices a measurable input into tech-hub competitiveness.
The trend: US venture capital and corporate campus siting are dispersing from Silicon Valley toward Southern secondary hubs, with North Carolina converting policy repairs and flagship deals into sustained funding growth.