Startups from different corners of the United States — and even Canada — gathered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for one of the most anticipated tech conferences on the regional calendar.
ConvergeSouth 2026 took place last Thursday and Friday at Biotech Place, marking the tenth edition of the event organized by Flywheel. In total, more than 150 startups walked the halls of the event — each one with a different story, a problem to solve, and a solution to showcase.
The gathering brought together founders and entrepreneurs from North Carolina, the Southeast U.S., and even beyond — reporters on-site even had the chance to chat with Canadian founders at the venue. The focus was split across three major thematic tracks:
- Track 1: Healthtech and Biotech
- Track 2: Artificial Intelligence and B2B SaaS
- Track 3: Food, Beverage, and Agtech
And what made this year especially interesting was the blend between these tracks — after all, innovation rarely stays neatly inside a single box. 🚀
How the event worked in practice
Unlike most summits in the region, ConvergeSouth is one of those events that is tough to recap in a linear way. And that is not a flaw — it is a deliberate feature. Basically, everything happens at the same time, and each attendee has complete freedom to explore the event based on their own priorities. Want to focus on biotech? Go for it. Prefer to spend the whole day watching AI pitches? That works too. This flexibility is exactly what makes the event stand out on the North Carolina tech conference calendar.
The opening took place simultaneously at two locations: Winston Starts, inside Biotech Place itself, and remarks from Thom Ruhe of NC IDEA at the Atrium located at 500 W. 5th, just a short walk away. From there, the event took on a life of its own and spread across both spaces.
Receive the best innovation content in your email.
All the news, tips, trends, and resources you're looking for, delivered to your inbox.
By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to receive communications from Método Viral. We are committed to always protecting and respecting your privacy.
The 500 W. 5th building hosted several speaker sessions, while most of the action happened at Biotech Place. That is where representatives from the 150-plus startups split their time between delivering pitches — in different rooms surrounding the main space — and showcasing their projects at tables scattered throughout the atrium. On the first day, the stage was primarily occupied by the Healthtech, Biotech, Food, Beverage, and Agtech tracks. The second day was dedicated to the AI and B2B SaaS track, always with a few crossovers between areas here and there.
Chonex takes home the grand prize
Between sessions, the pitches gradually built into a competition that stretched across both days of the event. And the grand prize this year — a spot to compete for a $1 million investment at the Startup World Cup — went to Chonex, a startup out of Birmingham, Alabama.
Chonex’s approach is as creative as it is practical: the company uses insect-derived materials to enrich soil. In practice, that means delivering more value to farmers through better plant nutrition, increased crop yields, and other direct benefits for people who make their living off the land. It is the kind of solution that blends biology, sustainability, and business in a way that just makes sense — and it shows why the agtech track has been gaining so much ground at events like this. 🌱
Winston-Salem at the center of the innovation map
It might come as a surprise to anyone who still associates tech innovation only with San Francisco or New York, but Winston-Salem has been building a solid reputation as a hub for technology and life sciences for several years now. The city is home to major universities, research labs, and infrastructure that increasingly attracts founders willing to test ideas outside the big metros. Biotech Place, the venue that hosted ConvergeSouth, is a symbol of that transformation — a hub dedicated specifically to biotech and health sciences companies that functions as a living ecosystem within the city.
Choosing this venue for the tenth edition of the event was no coincidence. Flywheel, the organization behind ConvergeSouth, has a track record of connecting entrepreneurs with real resources — mentors, investors, and business opportunities that go beyond inspirational talks. Over ten years, the conference has grown from a small regional gathering into one of the most relevant startup showcases in the American Southeast, and that growth directly reflects the maturation of the Winston-Salem ecosystem as a whole.
Having more than 150 startups present at a single edition says a lot about where the ecosystem is right now. It is not just about quantity — it is about the diversity of solutions, markets, and founder profiles. There were teams of two or three people presenting a project still on paper alongside companies that already have traction, recurring revenue, and clear expansion plans. That mix is exactly what makes events like ConvergeSouth so rich: you learn just as much talking to someone who is just starting out as you do from someone who has already survived the early obstacles and lived to tell the tale. 💡
Artificial Intelligence as the common thread of the event
If there is one topic that cut across virtually every conversation, pitch, and panel at ConvergeSouth 2026, it was artificial intelligence. Not in the generic, vague way you tend to see at events trying to ride the wave, but in an applied, grounded way — with real use cases and concrete problems to solve. Startups on the B2B SaaS track showed how they are using language models to automate internal processes at mid-sized companies, reduce operational costs, and improve end-user experiences without needing a massive engineering team. This is AI in the real world — less hype, more results.
The intersection of artificial intelligence and biotech was perhaps one of the most exciting parts of the entire conference. Some of the startups in attendance were working with AI tools to accelerate lab analyses, identify patterns in clinical data, and even predict patient responses to specific treatment protocols. When you bring advanced computational power into a sector that has historically relied on years of research to reach any conclusion, the potential for impact is enormous — and ConvergeSouth was one of the regional events that gave a structured stage to this kind of company.
Another standout detail was the presence of Canadian founders at the event. This shows that ConvergeSouth’s reach has already extended beyond the borders of the American Southeast and is starting to attract entrepreneurs from other countries who see the United States — and especially the innovation corridor that includes cities like Winston-Salem — as a real growth opportunity. Geographic barriers are becoming less and less relevant when the subject is technology, and events like this are living proof of that. 🌎
Biotech and Healthtech: where science meets the market
The Healthtech and Biotech track was one of the busiest at the event, and that makes perfect sense given the venue chosen to host ConvergeSouth. Biotech Place already carries the essence of what happens inside it right in its name, and holding a startup conference in that environment created a natural synergy between visitors and the local ecosystem. Founders who presented solutions for early disease diagnosis, telemedicine platforms, and health data management tools found an audience there that deeply understands the challenges and opportunities of the sector — which makes conversations far more productive than they would be at a generalist event.
One of the big discussions that emerged from this track was about how biotech startups can navigate a complex regulatory environment without losing speed. This is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the sector: innovation moves fast, but the approvals and certifications needed to bring a product to market can take years. Some companies at the event were working on solutions to make that process more efficient — using automation and artificial intelligence to organize documentation, anticipate regulatory requirements, and reduce errors that delay approvals. It is innovation within innovation.
The profile of founders on this track also stood out. Many came straight from research labs and universities, with strong scientific backgrounds, but who decided to make the leap into entrepreneurship after realizing their discoveries had real commercial potential. It is a different profile from the typical SaaS or consumer app founder — and ConvergeSouth handled that diversity well by creating thematic tracks that allow deeper conversations within each area, without losing the richness of the interdisciplinary connections that happen when everyone shares the same space. 🔬
Food, Agtech, and innovation from the field
The Food, Beverage, and Agtech track might seem out of place at a tech conference if you still have a more traditional view of the sector, but the reality is that the food supply chain is being completely transformed by startups combining biology, data, and automation in increasingly sophisticated ways. At ConvergeSouth, this track featured companies working on everything from crop optimization using sensors and predictive models to solutions for reducing food waste across the distribution chain — a problem with enormous environmental, economic, and social impact.
What is most surprising when you look at this sector is the speed at which it is adopting tools that, five years ago, were limited to large corporations with multimillion-dollar research budgets. Lean startup teams are managing to develop real-time agricultural monitoring solutions, food traceability platforms, and even food products developed with the help of technology to serve specific consumer niches. It is no coincidence that the grand winner of the event, Chonex, came from this very track. This kind of progress democratizes innovation in a way that would have been hard to imagine not long ago.
Within ConvergeSouth, the connection between this track and the others was visible at several points. An agtech startup might rely on AI tools to process the data it collects in the field. A food tech company might have a user interface that needs to be intuitive enough to be operated by farmers without deep technical training. These intersections show that the boundaries between tracks are more porous than they appear — and that founders who understand how to connect different areas of knowledge come out ahead when it comes to building products that actually work in the real world. 🌱
The real value of a personalized experience
At the end of the day, the biggest differentiator of ConvergeSouth for anyone who attends is the chance to build your own experience. That less linear programming format we mentioned at the beginning makes it practically impossible to absorb the entire event — but in return, it gives each person who walks through those doors the freedom to prioritize the speakers, startups, and pitches most relevant to their own goals.
That, combined with direct and straightforward access to founders, is what keeps ConvergeSouth as one of the standout events on the North Carolina tech conference calendar. Being able to have a candid conversation with someone who is building a company, without middlemen and without excessive formality, is the kind of value that no single keynote can deliver on its own.
ConvergeSouth 2026 made it clear that the startup ecosystem in the American Southeast is mature, diverse, and packed with energy to keep growing. Winston-Salem, with its strong bet on biotech and life sciences, is solidifying its position as an increasingly relevant destination for those who want to build the future — and not just talk about it.
