The Blackstone Group's charitable foundation announced this morning that it is committing $3.6 million to create an entrepreneur network in the Triangle.

Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of private equity firm, formally announce the five-year initiative at an event in Durham's American Tobacco Campus.

The company hopes the network will become a model for other regions.

The money will be used to create an entrepreneurial support network similar to ones that already exist in Silicon Valley and the Boston area.

Partners in the project include Duke University, N.C. Central, N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill.

A rapidly expanding Durham research company that relies mostly on government public-health contracts is adding more office space to house its growing workforce.

SciMetrika's revenue will more than double this year to $12 million, fueled mostly by contracts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies, said CEO Jean Orelien.

The company's work includes conducting a survey of health providers' satisfaction for Medicare and Medicaid, studying the effectiveness of carbon monoxide detectors and increasing access to childhood vaccines and immunizations.

Orelien, a native of Haiti who founded the company in 2001, now wants to tap new markets helping health insurers, corporations and the U.S. military improve medical care. He projects that revenue could rise to more than $100 million within the next five years.

Two business incubators and a nonprofit that helps foster entrepreneurs and startup companies plan to set up shop in downtown Durham's American Tobacco Campus.

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development will join LaunchBox Digital and Joystick Labs at the campus. The additions are aimed at turning the successful commercial development project into a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.

The three organizations will be tenants in the newly named American Underground, a 26,000 square-foot space in the lower levels of American Tobacco's Strickland and Crowe Buildings.

The three groups will take about a third of the American Underground space. American Tobacco will seek to lease the rest at about $19.95 per square foot. That's below the square-foot price of $25.95 that the campus is seeking for 88,000 square feet that GlaxoSmithKline said it will vacate next May.

The local nonprofit group that supports entrepreneurs and startup companies named a veteran venture capitalist as its new chairman.

Michael Elliott, managing partner of Noro-Moseley Partners, will serve a one-year term as chairman of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development starting July 1. He replaces SciQuest CEO Stephen Wiehe, who remains an officer on CED's executive committee.

CED was formed in 1984 and is now one of the country's largest support groups for entrepreneurs and small businesses, with more than 5,500 members.

Forget trying to build a better mouse trap. Build a better business model instead.

That's the key to building a billion-dollar business from scratch, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst told a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists this afternoon at the annual CED Venture Conference held in Pinehurst.

Raleigh-based Red Hat didn't succeed because it created better software. On the contrary, the Linux open source software was created by a worldwide community of software developers even before Red Hat existed.

What Red Hat did do, Whitehurst said, is devise an innovative way to sell free software that clicked with corporate customers because it solved a problem they faced: ever-changing software for critical operations, including new features they may not even want.

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development, which marked its 25th anniversary this year, has a new logo, slogan and branding campaign as it looks to expand its membership during a down economy.

The Research Triangle Park nonprofit saw membership increase about 8 percent for the year that ended in June, and has set a goal of 10 percent for the current year, said Joan Siefert Rose, who became CED's president in August 2008.

CED was formed in 1984 and is now one of the country's largest support groups for entrepreneurs and small businesses, with more than 5,500 members.

Siefert Rose spoke by telephone this morning about the group's new look and more. Here are some highlights of that conversation:

On the new brand: CED's previous logo was about 15 years old and "it looked like it needed some upgrading," she said. The new one features a pattern of swirling dots with an orange dot in the center and the new slogan "Start Something." Clean Design, an RTP brand firm, designed the new look.
The group also is starting to refer to itself as "CED," rather than the full name, which "was sort of a mouthful," Siefert Rose said. "It's nice to have a fresh start."