Internet : Innovation + Job News

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Northrop Grumman Corp. last month expanded their Cync cybersecurity  program with three new companies, including the program’s first international one. The three firms joined the five companies currently at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park in Catonsville.

The folowing three companies entered the Cync program:

• iWebGate is relocating its headquarters from Perth, Australia, to Maryland. It is developing a multi-tenant security-tested network between private networks and the Internet;
• DB Networks, of Silicon Valley provides behavioral analysis of database security equipment. It intends to grow its mid-Atlantic region; and,
• Baltimore's Light Point Security, which is working on protecting corporate networks from web-based malware.

Northrop Grumman and UMBC jointly select the companies for the 18-month long Cync program, which began in 2011.
 
Chris Valentino, director of contract research and development for Northrop Grumman Information Systems in Annapolis says the program is for early-stage companies to grow and develop their cybersecurity products. He identified global security, data analytics and technology as areas that are of particular interest. Valentino says he also considers how the product fits into Northrop Grumman’s portfolio.
 
Northrop Grumman pays for Cync program companies’ office space and equipment at the UMBC incubator. Its own entrepreneur-in-residence at the incubator works with the companies on business plans and marketing.
 
Valentino says the Cync program is getting requests from companies outside the U.S. and elsewhere in the country. “They wanted to expand to Maryland specifically for the Cync program and to work with federal government,” he says of the companies.
 
Northrop Grumman provides a link to potential customers in the federal marketplace. “Our intention is to partner with the companies,” he says.
 
Ellen Hemmerly, executive director at bwtech@UMBC, says there are more than 100 companies in the research and technology park. Of these, two-thirds are early-stage companies that are participating in one of its three incubators. Bwtech’s cybersecurity incubator has 35 early-stage companies and another 10 companies that are more mature businesses.
 
Of the 35 early-stage companies, eight are participating in the Cync program. She says that when the Cync program was established, there was not an absolute number set on the number of companies that could participate.

"We projected five to six companies at any one time, and we are staying within that framework.”
 
Sources: Chris Valentino, Northrop Grumman Information Systems; Ellen Hemmerly, bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park
Writer: Barbara Pash

TechGuard Security LLC, a woman-owned startup in Baltimore County, is launching its first product for the international market. Bandura Box cybersecurity software will be available through the Catonsville startup or its new wholly owned subsidiary Bandura LLC.
 
“We are still incorporating features needed for an international market and learning the import/export laws. No price has been set,” says Bandura and TechGuard CEO Suzanne Magee.
 
TechGuard provides cyber services, products and training, and research and development to protect and support national initiatives, including the defense, financial, healthcare, retail and energy sectors. Customers include a large financial organization in Chicago, regional banks, a grocery wholesaler, technology companies and members of the nuclear power industry.
 
In 2000, Magee founded TechGuard in St. Louis, Mo., where it still has an office. In 2004, she relocated the company headquarters to Maryland to be closer to federal government clients and because the state encourages entrepreneurship.

“I have locations elsewhere but Maryland is unsurpassed for entrepreneurs in the country. I found a system and a network of talent and financial backing,” she says.
 
Magee is opening a TechGuard office in Oklahoma City, Okla., in June. In 2010, Magee moved TechGuard into the incubator bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. 

TechGuard produces security products that uses a security perimeter defense to block Internet addresses from a particular country with the click of a mouse. Magee says she is focusing on two products: Bandura Box and a product for the domestic market called PoliWall. Priced from $5,000 to $50,000 depending on capacity, PoliWall is sold through TechGuard and Bandura.
 
TechGuard has a staff of about 100, nearly half of whom were hired earlier this year. Bandura has a staff of five. Magee is looking to hire an additional 20 staffers -- cybersecurity professionals, preferably certified in various cyber specialties – to be split between the two companies.
 
TechGuard is privately financed. For Bandura, Magee is considering partner-investors and/or a financing round to raise approximately $2 to $5 million in the next six months to further PoliWall and to reach a global market for Bandura Box.
 
Source: Suzanne Magee, TechGuard Security LLC and Bandura LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The state is hiring 70 staffers to work on the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, a marketplace that lets consumers choose health insurers and is a key provision of new federal health rules known as Obamacare. 

The exchange is an independent state agency located in downtown Baltimore and requires a variety of functions, from IT to marketing and management.
 
In addition, the state is hiring companies that will create and/or manage parts of the exchange. When their contracts are finalized, the companies will do their own hiring for a so-far undetermined number of jobs.
 
“A lot of our resources will be through vendors,” says Leslie Lyles Smith, the exchange’s director of operations, of the companies to which the exchange will subcontract various responsibilities.
 
Smith says that most of the future employees, both those hired by the exchange and by vendor/subcontractors, will be in operations and IT. She divided the job areas into the following categories:

• IT;
• marketing and communications outreach;
• planning and partner management, specifically liaison with brokers, third-party administrators and insurance companies;
• operations and consumer assistance, specifically the call center and navigator program;
• internal operations;
• budget and finance;
• human resources;
• general services;
• policy and government relations; and,
• appeals/grievances.
   

The Maryland General Assembly created the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange in 2011, following the 2010 passage of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Maryland is one of the first six states in the country to create an exchange, a key provision in the federal law to set up a marketplace for the public and health insurers. In turn, the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange opened the Maryland Health Connection as the online portal for the public and small businesses to get health insurance and tax credit information and to enroll.
 
The state began hiring to staff the exchange  last year and is continuing to hire. Smith expects to have most, if not all, the positions filled by the exchange’s opening day. All jobs are posted on the exchange’s website under the “careers” heading. Two recent job listings, for deputy director budget and management and for manager of the call center listed salaries of about $61,000 to $98,000 and of about $50,000 to $81,000 respectively.
 
Vendor hiring is also ongoing and requests for proposals can be found on the exchange’s website under the “procurement” heading. Once a vendor is selected, job-seekers will go directly to the company for information about employment. The number and type of jobs each vendor requires varies.
 
Source: Leslie Lyles Smith, Maryland Health Benefit Exchange
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Light Point Security LLC this year expects to launch its first product, Light Point Web Enterprise, a secure web browsing solution for company networks. The startup is collaborating on commercializing the product with Northrop Grumman Corp. through a program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County incubator in Catonsville.
 
“Northrop Grumman is helping us to develop and polish our product,” says Chief Operating Officer Zuly Gonzalez, who cofounded the startup with CEO Beau Adkins. Both are former National Security Agency employees.
 
Light Point takes a non-traditional approach to cybersecurity. Unlike the standard detection-based approach to determine if a website is safe or infected, Light Point uses an isolation-based approach to protect company networks from web-based malware.
 
“We assume all websites are malicious and we treat them exactly the same way – virus or safe – so there is no way for a malware site to get into a computer and infect the corporate network,” says Gonzalez.
 
Light Point’s proprietary software uses virtualization and cloud technologies to isolate and enclose each employee’s browsing sessions. “We prevent the network from getting infected by preventing websites and web content from even getting on the computer,” she says.
 
Founded in 2010, Light Point Security moved into the Cyber Incubator at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park last year. The company has tested different versions of its product, including an earlier version that rented space for customers through a cloud service provider. The current version allows the customer to run the product on its own network or its own cloud space.
 
“The idea is to give them control,” says Gonzalez.
 
Light Point is planning to sell the product through a yearly subscription fee of $40 to $50 per employee. It will market the product to commercial enterprises, primarily medium- to large-sized companies, and expand to government agencies in 2014.
 
Gonzalez says that Northrop Grumman is helping the company commercialize its product with technical and business advice.
 
Light Point Security is a finalist in the InvestMaryland Challenge in the IT category, and will hear by mid-April if it has won the $100,000 prize. The startup is privately funded. The cofounders, who are the startup's two employees, are considering an angel financing round of, perhaps, $500,000, in the future.
 
Source: Zuly Gonzalez, Light Point Security LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Recently formed marketing company Kalix Communications LLC is going after independent schools, education and corporate clients.
 
The company has already landed two clients in the educational field. One is Notre Dame Preparatory School, a Catholic middle-high school in Towson, for which Kalix created a social media marketing campaign. It also bought radio ads and conducted market research on behalf of the school.
 
Kalix is also working with two divisions at Towson University. It conducted social media training for Towson’s Center for Professional Study’s clients, and formulated a social media strategy for Towson’s Division of Innovation and Applied Research.
 
Kalix partner and president Jonathan Oleisky formerly headed Media 924, a social media consulting firm. Ruth Eve, Kalix partner and executive vice president, was formerly vice president at Green and Associates, a media buying agency.
 
“Baltimore has many strong marketing agencies. Our challenge is how we differentiate ourselves,” says Oleisky.
 
He says Kalix has chosen to do so by subcontracting with 12 “strategic partners,” senior-level executives who are assigned to teams depending on clients’ requests, and by having a flexible fee structure, from retainer to project-based.
 
Oleisky says Kalix focuses on brand development, creative direction, social media strategy and implementation, media buying and planning and public relations. Besides the two educational institutions, Kalix’s clients include Consolidated Insurance Center, Prezmed and My Directive.
 
The privately financed Kalix launched its website this week. Oleisky projects first year sales of $500,000 to $750,000 and, based on that projection, expects to hire two to three staffers in project management and account services later this year.
 
Source: Jonathan Oleisky, Kalix Communications LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 

Baltimore's tourism bureau is expanding its free app for tourists and convention planners to new platforms and neighborhoods.

The 3-D app of the city, known as BaltimoreInSite, will be available free for Android devices and downloadable from Visit Baltimore's website by mid-2013. The app is currently available on the iPhone. Since it was launched last year, 60 people have downloaded the app. 

The app's map will cover about half the city by this summer and the rest by next year, says Brian Russell, integrated practice manager at Ayers Saint Gross Inc. The Baltimore architectural firm developed the app, which currently covers about one-fourth of the city. 

“We are applying video game technology to telling about the city in a unique way,” Russell says. 

Baltimore InSite now covers the Inner Harbor to Amtrak’s Penn Station, including Canton, Fort McHenry and Locust Point. Future coverage will extend to Station North Arts & Entertainment District and the Charles Street corridor along with major institutions and attractions like Johns Hopkins University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore Zoo and M&T Bank Stadium. The app links to hotels, restaurants, retail and attractions that are Visit Baltimore members.
 
Visit Baltimore  CEO Tom Noonan says the app has several uses. Convention and hotel sales teams use it to show potential convention customers the layout of the city and its attractions. It is a media planning guide to find restaurants, caterers and venues. Tourists use the app to find attractions and walking tours.
 
Noonan says the app is an ongoing project.  The web version will link to other websites, and new buildings and attractions like Horseshoe Casino will be added as they open.
 
The app cost about $40,000 to develop, paid by Visit Baltimore and Ayers Saint Gross, which also contributed pro bono work to the project. 
 
Sources: Brian Russell, Ayers Saint Gross; Tom Noonan, Visit Baltimore
Writer: Barbara Pash

Kithly LLC, a startup entertainment website, is kicking off a new business strategy to make money. 

The free website asks users to input their preferences for entertainment and then Kithly culls through its own list of activities and events that fit users' lifestyle. Kithly is now opening up its website to even promoters for a fee, giving them access to the people most likely to attend their events, says Co-founder Devin Partlow.
 
During the month of April, event promoters can sign up on its website to have information about their events sent to Kithly users for free. After the free offer ends, event promoters will hopefully stick around and continue to use the website, at a fee of $5 per event. 
 
“Everyone knows about the big shows and concerts in Baltimore. We are interested in the small and local events,” says Partlow of promoters and organizers who usually don’t have the budget to do much advertising.
 
“Instead of going onto a campus and hanging up posters or passing out flyers to whomever walks by, we are helping them reach their target market,” he says. “We used to recommend only things we could find for the site. Now, promoters and organizers will pay us to market to our users."
 
The change in business strategy is another evolution of Kithly since Partlow founded it in 2010. Originally called Hooopla, the idea was to let users of its website share information about events. It then broadened its reach to include information obtained from Facebook and Meetup groups. The company is one of four that graduated from Baltimore City's startup bootcamp Accelerate Baltimore.  
 
Partlow says he now has 6,000 recommendations on the website of places to go and things to do. The recommendations are constantly updated, and include events around the country. Most, though, are in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Kithly’s home base.
 
“We analyze our users, what kinds of events they like and run it through our algorithm. We recommend things they wouldn’t necessarily hear about,” he says of local comedy clubs and band appearances.
 
In the last two months, Partlow says that the number of website users and clicks to the website have grown by 70 percent each. He says there are now about 300 users.
 
Last year, Kithly moved into the Emerging Technology Center in Canton. Kithly received a $25,000 Accelerate Baltimore award from the Canton incubator. Partlow met his cofounder Stacy Weng and advisor Ben Lieblich through CoFoundersLab.com. 
Partlow is focusing Kithly on entertainment but may add other areas like sports events in the future. “We are starting with that niche and we’ll see how it works before expanding,” he says.
 
Source: Devin Partlow, Kithly LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CoFoundersLab, a startup that matches business partners with one another, says it will close an angel investing round of about $500,000 next month and is expanding its reach in the U.S. and abroad.

Headquartered in Rockville and with extensive ties to Baltimore, CoFoundersLab connects entrepreneurs with one another and hosts targeted networking sessions to introduce founders to investors and partners. It is now adding 10 more US cities to the 20 in which it already has a presence. Internationally, it is launching in London, Tel Aviv, Singapore and Sao Paulo. CoFoundersLab is recruiting volunteer partners in its new domestic markets of Houston, Dallas, Detroit and Nashville, among others, as well as abroad.

CoFoundersLab already operates in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles. In New York City, for example, CoFoundersLab partners with a team at New York University’s Stern School of Business. In Baltimore, it regularly hosts events at Betamore and the Emerging Technology Center @ Canton and the University of Baltimore.
 
“We are looking for partners whose access to the community we can tap into,” says CEO Shahab Kaviani, co-founder with Culin Tate of a company that calls itself “matchmaking for entrepreneurs” in search of business partners.
 
Kaviani says the company’s partners are generally an accelerator or the coworking space of a university, where it hosts events that bring together entrepreneurs and investors/business partners. Its website also serves that purpose.
 
“The first challenge an entrepreneur has to overcome is finding the right business partner," Kaviani says. "In the past, you went to friends or networked. We are creating a large pool online."
 
CoFoundersLab began in 2010 as a part-time service to host events for start-up companies. In 2011, it launched its initial version of the online match-up website. In 2012, financed by The Fort Accelerator in Washington, D.C. and angel investors, it became a full-time service.
 
Kaviani isn’t sure of the number of match-ups for which CoFoundersLab can take credit.  He believes it is in the low hundreds. “Some we hear about, others we don’t,” he says, pointing to Kithly, an application company that was formerly housed in a Baltimore incubator and whose founder met his business partner through CoFoundersLab.
 
 It is also in the process of reorganizing its website. Currently, the website is accessible for free but Kaviani says a paid membership, with advanced features, will be introduced this year. Membership prices haven’t been finalized.
 
Next month, too, CoFoundersLab will find out if it has been chosen to advance to the final round of the state-sponsored InvestMaryland Challenge that culminates in April. It is currently one of 61 finalists in three categories for the $100,000 prize.
 
CoFoundersLab has a staff of five. It is hiring two staffers this summer, in marketing and technology development.
 
Source: Shahab Kaviani, CoFoundersLab
Writer: Barbara Pash

My Hopeful Journey this year is expanding its market from individual users to businesses and associations. The Baltimore County lifestyle website is offering fee-based corporate memberships to clinics, pharmacies, mind-body programs and online communities as a way to reach more women.

Last year, founder Lisa Drouillard launched a free iPhone application, called the Infertility Survival Kit, to accompany the website. She also launched an app on adoption.

Harford County resident Lisa Drouillard founded the company, located at the TowsonGlobal Business Incubation at Towson University.

For corporate members, Drouillard creates a customized website and mobile application, along with a six-month free membership in My Hopeful Journey. Corporate members can co-brand the site with their logos, message and website links. A basic package costs $500.

"It is a value-added service for their members," she says.

My Hopeful Journey grew out of Drouillard's personal experience of five years of infertility treatments. As a full-time working woman, she found it difficult to keep track of daily tests and medication dosages during treatment.

My Hopeful Journey has an organizer to record appointments, medications, tests, procedures and natural tracking like body temperature. It includes content like resources, blog, task list and journal. Drouillard is continuing to market directly to individuals, who can access the website for free. Users can also sign up for a premium option with customized reports and downloadable documents, for $6 per month.

My Hopeful Journey has over 1,000 users. The Survival Kit app, downloadable from the Apple app store, has over 500 downloads since its launch less than two months ago.

Funding for My Hopeful Journey is private, supplemented by prize money the company has won in different business and pitch competitions.

“Infertility is a very complex, emotional situation. I wanted to share my personal journey, what I went through and what inspired me,” says Drouillard, who has a three-year-old daughter. “I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me to say how much they needed this website.”
 
Source: Lisa Drouillard, My Hopeful Journey
Writer: Barbara Pash

A local startup backed by serial tech entrepreneur Clarence Wooten will help investors in crowdfunding projects hedge their bets.

Founded last month, Asurvest provides investment insurance for private and professional investors in Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms, CEO Luke Cooper says. The company will open an office in Baltimore over the next few months, hiring three to five analysts and marketing specialists.

Cooper says Asurvest is looking to partner with established crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter.com, Fundable.com and Gofunding.com.

“These groups are highly visible. They attract investors. They have strong business models,” Cooper says, although exactly how the partnership would work has yet to be determined. “We are in an incremental improvement mode,” he says of Asurvest.
 
Cooper, Co-founder Sudhir Shandilya and Wooten have all invested an undisclosed sum in the company. Cooper's Baltimore investment firm Performant Capital Partners also backs the company. Cooper declined to say how much funding they have raised to date.

Wooten is a Baltimore native who is founder and chairman of social networking firm Groupsite.com. He's known best for co-founding ImageCafe.com during the dot-com boom and selling it to Network Solutions/Verisign for $23 million. An advisor to Asurvest, he now resides in Silicon Valley and will launch a new company, Progressly Inc., in the middle of this year. 

Crowdfunding is in its infancy, but growing rapidly. Recent federal legislation makes it permissible for private individuals to invest in crowdfunding platforms.
 
With that, however, comes a tremendous need for assurance that even small investors who spend $1,500 or $2,000 feel comfortable. "We seek to fill that need and to protect them from risk,” says Cooper.
 
Based on its proprietary statistical and risk management models, Asurvest says that it can accurately quantify certain kinds of business risks. It will provide default risk insurance at premiums that range from two to 20 percent of the initial investment. The founders haven't decided yet whether Asurvest would underwrite or broker the insurance policies.

Cooper says the company is still working out how it would operate for an investor. "There will be a cost for the investor, depending on the investment profile," he says.
 
Despite the federal legislation, states have their own regulations and Asurvest has to be licensed in each. Cooper is currently working with the state of Maine to draft legislation. He says the founders chose Maine as the starting state because it has a business-oriented regulatory environment.
 
He expects to get approval from Maine within the next few months. He will then turn his attention to Maryland, working with the Maryland Insurance Administration on the appropriate applications.
 
After Maryland, he says Asurvest “will look at where investors are coming from, what parts of the country, and pursue licensing in those states.”
 

Source: Luke Cooper, Asurvest
Writer: Barbara Pash

Ahead Research, a life sciences startup founded by two Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine students, is launching its second product, Medassure, this year.

Craig Monsen and David Do launched the health information company in Fells Point in 2012 along with its first product, Symcat. 

Symcat allows users access to medical information and to assess the state of their health. Available on the web or as an application on a mobile device, the program asks users to enter their medical symptoms, then provides information from the federal Centers for Disease Control's database on the most likely diagnosis. Symcat is available as a free download on any smart phone, both iPhones and Android devices.

Medassure takes Symcat a step futher by providing information on medications to take for the diagnosis and analyzing possible interactions with the users' other medications. The founders say they plan to merge the two products together and market under the single name of Symcat.

Tolu Babalola, the company's head of growth, says Ahead Research launched Symcat with little fanfare but plans to market it aggressively this year. “We did some marketing and advertising of Symcat but this year we are spending money on a marketing campaign,” he says. 
 
Monsen and Do, now in their final year at Johns Hopkins medical school, developed Ahead Research in a health technology incubator, Blueprint Health. The company's funding comes from a $30,000 award from the Cigna Health Innovation Challenge and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant for $100,000.

In December, Ahead Research signed a memorandum of understanding with nonprofit BioHealth Innovation to accelerate the commercialization of Symcat. With offices in Rockville and Baltimore, BioHealth may launch a healthcare accelerator this year. 
 
Ahead Research has a full-time staff of three. The company expects to hire an undetermined number of software engineers in the next 12 to 18 months. It is also starting an internship program for college undergraduates in the local area.
 
Source: Tolu Babalola, Ahead Research
Writer: Barbara Pash

Mindgrub Games next week expects to release its third mobile game, “Escape! From Detention,” developed under its own brand and in conjunction with the Howard County Library System. Mindgrub Games, a division of Catonsville mobile application developer Mindgrub, plans to release more mobile games by the middle of this year. 
 
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services gave the public library a $100,000 grant to establish a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) laboratory for middle and high school students in the Savage Branch. Howard County then approached Mindgrub about the project.

“We created a basic game scenario and the kids were active participants in developing the game,” says Alex Hachey, lead Mindgrub Games designer. The game is downloadable for free from links on the Howard County Library System’s website.
 
The division is currently working on three new mobile games. One is a game for a client that may be announced later this month and two games under its own brand for a mid-2013 release.

Since Mindgrub Games was launched last summer, it has released two games. One, “Rescue Jump,” is its own brand. The second, “Scuba Adventures,” was done for a client, Discovery Kids, part of cable TV channel Discovery Network, and Zap Toys, a manufacturer in Hong Kong.
 
Mindgrub considered starting a games division two years ago, after an interactive festival showcased a mobile game that incorporated location technology, Hachey says.
 
“It was a spin on what Mindgrub had been doing. It got us thinking about games,” he says.
 
For “Scuba Adventures,” the division analyzed the market for competing games and worked with the client to develop a game to its specifications. The result is an educational game that sells for $1.99. Like all of Mindgrub Games’ products, it is available through Apple’s iTunes and the Android marketplace’s Google Play.
 
“Rescue Jump,” Mindgrub Games’ first product under its own brand, is a free download. It received over 1,300 downloads in its first two months.
 
Asked how the division makes money if the game is free, Hachey says, “Right now, it’s more of a learning objective. We are getting our feet wet in the game market. We are getting our name out. We can always add to or refine it [later] and then charge money.”
 
Since inception, Mindgrub Games has grown from three to seven full-time staffers. It is looking to hire Corona mobile applicaiton developers, illustrators and designers, depending on client contracts.
 
Source: Alex Hachey, Mindgrub Games
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 

Baltimore tech startup SameGrain Inc.  plans to launch its first round of financing, for $500,000, this year.

Founder Anne Balduzzi calls SameGrain a “social discovery” platform, a new form of social media that connects people to each other for business and social purposes.

The Internet platform is private and anonymous, unless clients choose to reveal their names. “You can go online and find people like yourself or who attended the same schools  –  people with the same interests, same educational background, same health issues, and much more,” she says. The company is signing up early people willing to be beta testers on its website.
 
“We match people to other people, whether in the same city or elsewhere, for careers, business networking, shopping and similar life experiences,” says Balduzzi, whose background includes stints at Quantum Computer Services, the precursor to AOL and as the first product manager for Apple’s first online service.
 
Founded in 2011, SameGrain is located in the Emerging Technology Center at Canton.  In 2012, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, known as TEDCO, gave the company $75,000 in seed money. SameGrain is applying for other state agency grants and soliciting financing from angel investors.
 
Balduzzi says the beta testing, a standard step for startups, will serve as market research and help it build a user base. Once the beta testing and funding are wrapped up, SameGrain will make an official marketing push, hopefully this year. 

SameGrain has already won several awards. It won first place in last summer’s Washington Post’s Capital Business “pick your pitch” competition, receiving more than 6,600 online votes. It won the StartRight Business Plan competition last summer. And, last fall, it was one of eight finalists in StartUp Maryland "Pitch Across Maryland,” chosen by a panel of entrepreneurs and investor experts.
 
The company has a staff of three full-time and four part-time. It is interviewing people with programming and design experience for possible future employment.
 
Source: Anne Balduzzi, SameGrain Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash

Skyline Technology Solutions LLC expects to sign six new contracts next year, expanding its market reach. The Carroll County IT company currently has customers in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
 
President Brian Holsonbake says the additional customers will result in a 10 to 15 percent growth in sales for Skyline, which averages over $35 million in sales per year. Most of the new states are located along the East Coast, although he declined to identify them until the contracts are signed.
 
The company offers fiber-optic cabling as well as inside and outside plant cabling; networking, customized software development and back-end application services for federal agencies, state and local jurisdictions and commercial customers; 24/7 managed services at its network operations center; and hosting services.
 
Holsonbake says the company is continuing to expand its video-interoperability product line, an appliance or cloud-based solution that enables different agencies to share live-streaming video at different locations simultaneously. The solution works with traditional and mobile devices.
 
Among its customers are the Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., departments of transportation, City of Annapolis police department, and bus and transit companies in those jurisdictions. Commercial customers include companies in the financial and medical sectors.
 
The privately financed company was founded in 2004 with one employee. It now has 112 employees and is hiring 16 more, in software development, network engineering and VoIP engineering.
 
As the company has grown, it has added offices. In 2007, the company opened an office in Eldersburg, which remains the corporate headquarters. In 2009, it opened a 15,000-square foot office in Glen Burnie, Ann Arundel County, to which it later added 3,000 square feet. In 2012, it added a second, 9,000-square foot office in Glen Burnie. The company currently occupies three offices, two in Glen Burnie and one in Eldersburg.
 
Skyline Networking Solutions is a Knowtion Group company.
 
Source: Brian Holsonbake, Skyline Technology Solutions LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

Believe Wireless Broadband is expanding its delivery area into the Washington, D.C., market and will install equipment on the roof of Union Station, Amtrak and commuter railroad station by Jan. 1. The Internet service provider is expanding from its current coverage area of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and parts of Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
 
Believe is also in the process of installing equipment on a tower on MD Route 100 in Howard County, to be finished in 2013.  It already has equipment on an existing tower on Moravia Road, Baltimore County. 
 
“This expands the areas we are able to serve. We are creating a multi point network,” Believe Vice President Marian Huller says.
 
Wireless broadband, aka fixed wireless broadband, connects to the Internet via a radio connection to its equipment. Believe offers business Internet services, wireless networks, voice over IP phone and point to point links of up to one gigabit per second.
 
Believe was founded in 2002. At the time, high bandwidth was not available in Baltimore City, and wireless provided a solution. The Baltimore County company’s mailing address is Owings Mills but its physical office is located in Towson.
 
The company has four full-time employees and is looking to hire a network administrator.
 
At a gb.tc event last month at downtown Baltimore's Lexington Market, the company installed Wi-Fi, the first time the market had been wired. After the event, Believe left the Wi-Fi in place, providing free wireless in the market’s seated area and conference room.
 
“The market holds lots of events. On one night I was there, students from the University of Maryland law school were giving free legal aid,” says Huller. So the company stole a page from the students by providing free wireless. “It was our way to give back to the community.”
 
Source: Marian Huller, Believe Wireless Broadband
Writer: Barbara Pash