A company that designs the software used in Internet cafés recently moved from leased space in Simpson to a permanent facility in Greenville to accommodate the company’s growth.

Garrett Blackwelder, 33, who attended East Carolina University on a basketball scholarship, is the owner and president of Figure Eight Technologies. He said he started out in 2003 funded by a credit card, operating a vendor machine route selling phone cards with sweepstake game pieces attached.

When he saw the possibilities with software design for Internet café sweepstakes games, he focused his energy on hiring people to develop software for the games. Today, his company licenses the software in 18 states and in Puerto Rico.

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