The Weekend EditionSaturday, July 25, 2026 · Past editions

The Amped Journal

A daily briefing brought to you by Amped Ventures

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The Week in Review

It was a week where AI competition and space setbacks made headlines nationally, while Wilmington locked in major local wins - a TV station consolidation, a port infrastructure grant, and nearly 40 bids for its downtown master plan - and Matt took the stage at UNCW to talk venture studios.

Chinese Model Kimi K3 Sparks US AI Policy and IP Fights

Jul 18 - Jul 20

Moonshot AI's open-weight model beat US benchmarks cheaply, prompting warnings from a White House adviser and distillation accusations.

Friday 7/18, David Sacks, the venture investor serving as the White House's AI and crypto policy lead, warned the US is on track to lose the AI race to China after Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 climbed to the top of a leading coding benchmark, beating Anthropic's flagship Fable 5. The 2.8-trillion-parameter model posted an Elo score of 1679 on Arena.ai's Frontend Code leaderboard, with full weights set for public release by July 27. Sacks argued the US is "tying itself in knots" with data-center bans and a push for federal pre-approval of model releases, calling that restrictive domestic policy a bigger threat than China's progress itself.

Saturday 7/19, Moonshot AI confirmed the July 27 open-weight release date, under a modified MIT license, with a 1-million-token context window, native image input, and pricing of $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output. Independent testing from Artificial Analysis gave the model an Intelligence Index score of 57, calling it a "sweet spot" of high performance and low cost against leading US models - in one test it beat Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol on game design visuals and pacing for just $0.03. Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, who ran internal stealth evals, called it "top-tier at cybersecurity" with "raw IQ," pushing back on chatter that Moonshot had overfit its published benchmarks.

By Sunday 7/20, Kimi K3's rise had reignited debate over AI model distillation - querying US labs' APIs to generate training data for rival systems. Anthropic had accused DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax in February 2026 of doing this at massive scale using thousands of fake accounts. US figures including Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick called for stronger intellectual-property rules to protect American labs' advantage, while others in the industry argued distillation is standard practice that drives progress and that restricting it could slow innovation broadly.

Axios · 849K followers · center · 588 engagement · post · also: X News, X News

Starship Flight 13 Slips Twice After Pad Abort

Jul 18 - Jul 20

A last-second engine failure pushed SpaceX's next attempt from Monday to Thursday.

On Saturday 7/18, word emerged that Starship Flight 13 hadn't actually launched as first reported - the flight computer aborted at T-0 after four of Super Heavy Booster 20's 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite, according to NASASpaceflight.com and Space.com. Elon Musk confirmed the engines were being swapped, and SpaceX set its sights on a second attempt Monday, July 20, in a 90-minute window opening at 6:45 p.m. EDT.

By Monday 7/20, that target had already slipped. SpaceX pushed the next attempt to Thursday, July 23, as repairs to Booster 20 continued. The FAA posted temporary flight restrictions covering Monday through Wednesday, and as of that report NASASpaceflight had not seen any rollout closures announced yet for Booster 20 and Ship 40's return to the pad.

NSF - NASASpaceflight.com · 735K followers · 218 engagement · post · also: SpaceX

Matt Cimino Set for NEW's Venture Studio Panel at UNCW

Jul 18 - Jul 21

Amped Ventures' Matt Cimino joins 24 and Up's Brian Ruddy for a July 23 panel at UNCW on venture studios.

NEW set Matt Cimino up alongside a fellow venture-studio operator for a Wilmington founder audience this week. On Saturday 7/18, the Network for Entrepreneurs announced its Deep Dive session on venture studios for July 23, pairing Cimino of Amped Ventures with Brian Ruddy of Raleigh's 24 and Up. The same announcement flagged NEW's bigger annual event, the investor "Buzz In," for Sept. 10 at Cape Fear Community College - which founder Jim Roberts calls the only venture capital conference east of Raleigh.

By Tuesday 7/21, NEW firmed up the details: the panel runs 4 to 6:30pm Thursday at UNCW's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, with Cimino and Ruddy joined by four additional experts covering how fast-moving AI product updates are reshaping sales.

Tuesday's report also noted two adjacent items on Wilmington's founder calendar - UNCW's CIE continuing its weekly 1 Million Cups Wilmington forum, and NC IDEA's July 20 info session at UNCW on its fall 2026 MICRO and SEED grant cycles.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Gray Media's WSFX-TV Purchase Adds Detail Through the Week

Jul 18 - Jul 22

Wilmington's NBC and Fox affiliates land under one owner as Gray closes the first phase of a $50M, six-station deal.

Gray Media, the Atlanta-based broadcaster that already owns Wilmington's NBC affiliate WECT, agreed on Saturday 7/18 to buy the city's Fox affiliate WSFX-TV as part of a six-station, $50 million purchase from American Spirit Media. Gray has long produced WSFX's local news under a shared-services arrangement, so the initial report noted viewers likely wouldn't see immediate changes. The first of two closings was completed June 30, funded partly by a $70 million private placement of 7.25% notes, according to SEC filings.

By Tuesday 7/22, more detail on the deal emerged: the other five stations going to Gray are Fox affiliates in Toledo, Ohio; Jackson, Mississippi; Columbus, Georgia; Wichita Falls, Texas; and Lake Charles, Louisiana, with American Spirit Media identified as Charlotte-based. The June 30 closing payment was specified at $40 million of the $50 million total.

Locally, the deal consolidates Wilmington's NBC and Fox affiliates under one owner for the first time, though both reports emphasized that the existing shared-services arrangement means the on-air product isn't expected to change right away.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Wilmington Fields Nearly 40 Bids for Downtown Master Plan

Jul 20 - Jul 23

Consultants line up for 22+ acres on downtown's north end as the city opts to plan rather than just rezone.

Monday, Wilmington officials began reviewing responses to three requests for qualifications covering more than 22 acres of undeveloped or underdeveloped land on downtown's northern end, plus a separate 1.6-acre tract at 305-319 Chestnut St. that once housed a city office building. The initial count: 17 responses for urban design work, 14 for placemaking and public realm services, and eight for market feasibility and economic analysis. Planning director Linda Painter said the city is taking a deliberate approach to shaping the site's future rather than relying on zoning alone.

By Thursday, the tally held at the same numbers - 17 urban-design, 14 placemaking, and eight market-feasibility proposals - confirmed by city communications manager Amy Willis as the final count from Monday's submission deadline. Painter reiterated that the site, which she says could shape the city for decades, called for a thoughtful planning approach rather than letting zoning alone dictate what gets built there.

The three RFQs, issued last month, will be scored on qualifications, experience, track record on similar projects, and overall quality of submission.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Also This Week

Markets This Week

10-yr Treasury yield: 4.68% · 30-yr mortgage avg: 6.58% (as of 7/23/2026)

Nasdaq slipped 2.1% and the S&P eased 0.6% on the week, while Intuit bucked the trend with a 5.3% single-day pop that leaves it up 13.5% over the past month. SpaceX kept sliding - down 7.2% for the week and roughly 25.5% over the month - as Starship's slipped test flight compounds pressure ahead of looming share-lockup expirations. Elsewhere, a judge froze the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger for two weeks and a Florida firm acquired Wilmington Dermatology Center, while 30-year mortgage rates held near 6.58% and the 10-year Treasury sat at 4.68%.

Wilmington's Green Compass Drops MLM Model for Wellness Brand

The plant-based wellness company is shifting to a direct-to-consumer structure ahead of NC's looming hemp restrictions.

Wilmington-based Green Compass, a wellness company that sells plant-based hemp products, is abandoning its multi-level marketing structure in favor of a new direct-to-consumer, community-driven model it calls "The Compass Collective." The company had relied on independent advocates for direct sales; the new structure lets advocates and influencers promote multiple brands rather than just Green Compass's line.

CEO Farah Azmi said the shift reflects how "the landscape of wellness has changed" and that advocates increasingly want flexibility to share more than one product line. Co-founder and president Meredith Cook, who started the company in 2019 with her husband Sterling, said Green Compass built its brand through word of mouth without ever operating a physical store.

The overhaul comes as the company prepares for North Carolina's potential new restrictions on hemp-derived products. Green Compass previously rented lab space at UNCW's Marine Biotechnology (MARBIONC) center in 2020 to research hemp's benefits.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Defendants Move to Dismiss Wilmington Homebuilder's Defamation Suit

Rivals named by Tongue & Groove owner Mark Batson ask NC Business Court to toss the case over alleged lack of specifics.

Mark Batson, owner of Wilmington luxury homebuilder Tongue & Groove, sued a group of competing builders and associated individuals in New Hanover County Superior Court in June, alleging a coordinated defamation campaign and other misconduct aimed at destroying his reputation and businesses. Named defendants include Kenneth Edward Jeffries, Christopher Parker, Anthony James Kidd, Jason Ruegg, Ryan Marchi, Parker Construction Group, 360 Builders LLC and John Does 1-100.

NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby designated the case a mandatory complex business case on July 2, sending it to NC Business Court. This week, attorneys for Jeffries, Kidd and 360 Builders LLC filed a brief seeking dismissal, arguing the complaint lacks the specifics needed to support its claims and rests on invalid legal arguments.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Eastwood Road Office Buildings Sell for $4.9M in Two Deals

A State Farm agent bought his own building for $2.25M after the seller split the site into a land condo.

Three two-story brick office buildings at 428, 430 and 432 Eastwood Road in Wilmington sold for a combined $4.9 million in two separate transactions recorded this week. Bowman Jones Properties LLC, an entity tied to Tribute Companies executives Robert Hollis and Mark Maynard Sr., had owned the 1.26-acre site since 2001 and subdivided it into a land condo so it could sell to multiple owner-occupiers.

Rob Cutting, a State Farm Insurance agent who already had an office in the 432 Eastwood Road building, bought the roughly 8,000-square-foot property for $2.25 million. Steve Hall of Blue Coast Commercial represented the sellers; Cody Cress and Tyler Pegg of Sun Coast Partners Commercial represented Cutting.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

Developing / On Watch

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Ongoing stories worth tracking over the next few days.

Local - Wilmington & Wrightsville Beach

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Castle Hayne Rezoning Meeting Set for Sewer Tech Firm's New Office

PipeView Technologies could move into a renovated house on Castle Hayne Road under a request up for public discussion July 28.

Stella Terra LLC, owner of a 2.56-acre tract at 4621 and 4625 Castle Hayne Road, is seeking to rezone the property from rural agricultural to conditional regional business so PipeView Technologies, a sewer inspection and repair company, can set up an office there. The existing house would be renovated for office use, with a new driveway and gravel parking for company vehicles. A community meeting on the request is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 28 at the house on the property.

Greater Wilmington Business Journal · read

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