After selling his company for $300 million, Bill Spruill was given expert advice: wait a year before deciding on his next career path. "I ignored it," he said. "I already knew what the next step would be." That next step, launched just a few months after selling Global Data Consortium in April, is a family office called 2ndF. Unlike most family offices, 2ndF is not simply a vehicle for preserving and growing Spruill's family wealth. Its core mission, Spruill said, is to build a new "ecosystem" for minority entrepreneurs and executives in North Carolina's Research Triangle. By writing checks to entrepreneurs and funding philanthropic programs that encourage people of color to launch or join more start-ups, Spruill said he hopes to create far more stories like his own. "The flood of investment is not reaching all people," said Spruill, who grew up and built his career and business in the Research Triangle. "It's hard to find peers, mentors and others who are executives at these organizations at the enterprise level. My intent is to change that curve." Along with a traditional investment function, 2ndF has angel investing and philanthropic units, both devoted to nurturing minority start-ups in the Triangle. The angel investment side teams up with other investors to fund minority tech companies and in the area. Student exposure to develop networks On the philanthropy side, 2ndF is working with early education, middle-schools and high-schools in the area to give students more exposure — and opportunities — in tech companies. "I can help high-achieving students move through those schools and have the resources they need. So if their schoolmates are going on a trip to Silicon Valley or Austin, I want them to be able to go and have the opportunities to participate because that's how you create networks." Spruill said 2ndF grew partly from his own experience. Rising through the ranks of tech companies in the area, "no one looked like me at senior levels in these organizations." He co-founded Global Data Consortium in 2012 with Charles Gaddy, and the company quickly became a leading provider of high-speed identity verification data. Yet despite rapid growth, attracting outside investors was difficult, leaving the company to fund its expansion largely on its own. "Part of the reason, I'm certain, is that capital was not flowing easily to minority investors," Spruill said. "I always hazard a guess, had I been younger, and maybe a different type of individual, it would have been easier to raise money." One of the companies he's preparing to invest in is Stern Security, a cybersecurity start-up in Raleigh, N.C., founded by Jon Sternstein. "He's getting great customer traction and I want to help him move to the next stage." Largely in cash — for now On the investment side of the family office, Spruill said he's largely in cash for now, given the interest rate and recession uncertainty. "Right now, cash is king," he said. "Until we see the IPO market open again, until we see the interest rate environment level out and a little less international intrigue, we're just waiting. The next upside will come, it's just a matter of when." Yet long-term, Spruill said the true success of 2ndF will be its legacy of the start-ups and entrepreneurs it's helped create in North Carolina. "If I do this right, I'm creating a pipeline of people who will go out and start their own companies," Spruill said. "If I can convince enough people to work in start-ups, to succeed in start-ups and maybe even start their own, then that will be a job well done for me."
