Insights

Successful founder, Bill Spruill provides initial funding to help the region achieve national dominance

Research Triangle Park, NC, January 24, 2023 — The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (“CED”) announces a historical $4 million investment, the largest donation ever made to an Entrepreneurial Support Organization in North Carolina. The commitment is part of a 10-year plan to support organic growth in the region with a resulting impact of 15 locally headquartered global companies in the next 10 years.

“Kelly and her team have created a compelling plan that I can get behind,” said Bill Spruill. “This gift will provide the CED team with the resources needed to help the region’s high-growth founders dream bigger, which is one of the central tenets of the 2ndF mission.”

Spruill, recently named Businessperson of the Year by TBJ has started to allocate financial resources to key players in the community that have the capacity to change the growth trajectory of the ecosystem.

“CED helped me very early in my career and gave me access to a network of other entrepreneurs who gave me the inspiration I needed to build my company, Global Data Consortium (GDC),” said Bill Spruill of 2ndf. “I’m now in a position to pay it forward and hope that this gift will encourage other successful founders in the community to join me in the effort to mentor and support the next generations of founders.”

Kelly Rowell, CEO of CED added, “Bill is leading by example of how the region’s successful entrepreneurs pay it forward for future generations. We are extremely grateful for his investment and excited to share the plan for expansion and impact in the months ahead.”

The Triangle has seen several successful homegrown entrepreneurial companies start and scale including Cree (Wolfspeed), RedHat, SAS, Precision Biosciences, Epic Games, and Bandwidth. CED will use these funds to help expand its programming and services to help find, nurture and scale 40-50 additional companies with similar outcomes.

About CED (Council for Entrepreneurial Development)
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development was formed in 1984 by a group of business leaders wanting to empower the successful creation and growth of entrepreneurial companies in the North Carolina region. CED acts as the connective center for all of this to happen. Through high-touch support, education, access to capital, and crucial connections, CED brings entrepreneurs together with the optimal resources needed to turn a new company into a success story. For more information go to www.cednc.org.

About Bill Spruill
Bill Spruill is the First Speaker of 2ndF, a family office focused on growing the Triangle ecosystem through focused execution on education, investment, and global collaboration. Prior to 2ndF Bill was the co-founder and former CEO of Global Data Consortium (GDC), the most widely channel-distributed global identity platform through a single API, before its acquisition by London Stock Exchange in May 2022. He has invested in or worked at a series of entrepreneurial businesses as well as volunteer work as a mentor at the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), He attended Northrup University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For more information visit www.2ndf.org.