The incubator at University of Maryland Baltimore County is seeing an uptick of new tenants. In the three-month period from March to June,
bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park welcomed nine new companies, an increase from previous similar periods but a typical number for the past year to 18 months.
It has also reached a major milestone by welcoming a total of 100 companies to the incubator, of which 85 have leased space.
Of the nine new companies, five are in cybersecurity and the rest are in IT, says Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of
[email protected] attributes the interest in cybersecurity to the proximity of the U.S. Army and Department of Defense agencies at Fort Meade and the academic talent at the university. She has also seen a surge in life science startups.
Last year, bwtech@UMBC welcomed a total of 25 new tenants and IT consulting firm RWD Technologies was acquired. Hemmerly says the incubator is currently recruiting early stage to larger companies to fill that now-vacant space as well as space in a newly opened incubator facility.
Here's a rundown of the nine new tenants:
• Assured Information Security Inc., a cyberspace government contractor. The company has 40-plus employees at its headquarters in Rome, N.Y. Since becoming a tenant, it has hired a dozen people and is looking to hire more, Hemmerly says. It chose UMBC because of its R&D interaction with the intelligence community at Fort Meade.
• Clovis Group, an accounting and finance IT and workforce management company that staffs government services.
• Communication Scientific International, a Glen Burnie-based, minority-owned communications systems and technical provider of defense and commercial communications.
• TechEdge Group, an Italian IT company that is based in Italy that also has an office in Chicago.
• Alpha Omega Technologies, a company that specializes in secure delivery of data and information.
• NETWAR Defenses, computer systems consultants and designers who specialize in national security and intelligence.
• LightGrid, a telecommunications and delivery solutions federal contractor.
• Companion Data Services, offering data-hosting services and health IT services.
Source: Ellen Hemmerly, bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park
Writer: Barbara Pash;
[email protected]