Open Source: An NC Triangle Tech Company Is On The Verge Of Disappearing

I'm Brian Gordon, technology reporter for The News & Observer, North Carolina's weekly open source business, jobs and technology newsletter.

Research Triangle Park is home to life sciences companies, but the area could soon lose one.

Agricultural technology company AgBiome warned the North Carolina Department of Commerce this week that it could "potentially" lay off 123 of its employees, including the company's two CEOs and other senior executives. By law, companies that want to close a plant of this size must give their employees at least 60 days' notice.

The layoffs will be effective from December 15. The company said yesterday that it is still trying to find investors to continue its operations, but "wants to ensure that our emergency personnel have the opportunity to immediately explore other options."

The company attributed its poor outlook to a difficult venture capital market. It raised $116 million during the low interest rate periods of 2021, but 2023 predicts a tougher outlook.

"Companies that succeeded in raising Series A funds a few years ago are now having trouble raising new capital," specialist columnist BioSpace wrote in August.

The rise and fall of biotechnology especially affects the triangle; Most lists of the largest US life sciences markets place Raleigh-Durham in the top 10 or even the top 5.

AgBiome makes pesticides, and the company says growers will continue to use two of its most popular fungicides, called Howler and Thea, "for years to come."

These products are likely to last longer than the company that made them.

For the rest of this week's news:

VinFast is having a (mostly) bad week in the market and in the media

WinFast CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy told Bloomberg on Monday: "We don't look at the share price as much as we focus more on execution and the future."

Maybe it would have been better if she hadn't seen him. Vietnamese automaker Vinfast, based in North Carolina, continued its sharp decline this week, falling to $5.70 per share. For a brief moment in August, the stock traded at $93.

What Tui said in the Bloomberg interview should scare investors.

He admitted his company would try to raise "a lot of capital" to finance its expansion into Asia. VinFast has already raised (and spent) billions to roll out its new fleet of all-electric SUVs to drivers in more than 50 markets around the world.

At the heart of the company's success in the United States is a $4 billion car and battery factory in Chatham County, North Carolina.

To raise more money, Vinfast plans to issue more shares, but analysts say this could further depress the share price. The financing from VinFast's president should support the company for the next 18 months, Twee said, but a combination of the financing and the share sale may not be enough.

However, this morning VinFast announced that it had signed a $1 billion stock option agreement with Yorkville Advisors, an investment fund.

The week of ups and downs for the company was marked by several articles explaining why Vinfast cars are not selling so well in their home country.

"'Much more to do': Vietnam's leading electric car maker struggles to gain traction in domestic market," ran the headline in southern China's Morning Post. "Vietnamese company Vinfast faces reliability problems in its region," said the Euronews channel.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Twik reiterated Vinfast's goal of selling 40,000 to 50,000 electric cars this year. He believed that the company's stock would recover once the automaker reached these milestones.

At the moment, the market seems skeptical.

Catch Pendo

Yesterday I interviewed Pendo CEO Todd Olson at his company's Pendomonium conference in downtown Raleigh. He shares his thoughts on software companies, the industry as a whole, and why he chose to give his company a pink brand.

I also asked about Israeli Pendo workers in the context of the ongoing war. Pendo has an office in the north of Tel Aviv with about 60 employees, of whom only 10% are on call.

"So far we have been lucky that no one has been directly injured (by the violence)," he said.

And the Triangle is a leading employer in the technology field…

According to local data provided by the North Carolina Technology Association, tech jobs in the Triangle have dropped by half in the past year. Last month there were 5,671 computer openings. Probably not everyone is actively complying.

The Triangle's biggest tech hire in September was First Citizens Bank, which acquired the remnants of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year, data show. Raleigh-based First Citizens Bank will report quarterly results next week. It will be interesting to see how he negotiates the inclusion of the former SVB in his future plans.

Assignment: Duke's patent series

• Music distribution platform Bandcamp is cutting half of its workforce after being laid off by Cary-based Epic Games Company last month.

• Pactive Evergreen will expand its Raleigh warehouse and hire about 100 workers, according to the Triangle Business Journal. The company is known in western North Carolina after it laid off more than 900 workers at a Canton paper mill.

• Duke University received $102.5 million this year to commercialize its research, a record for the school.

National Technical Events

• Amazon to start testing drug delivery via drones

• Overcoming a tough challenge from the FTC, Microsoft won approval to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard.

• The United States has imposed restrictions on the export of chips from China. China is not happy with the escalation of the trade war between the two countries. For a good read on this topic, check out The Chip War by Chris Miller.

Thanks for reading!

Open source

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