MACH37 accelerator announces first round companies

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Last week, CivSource spoke with Rick Gordon, Managing Partner at the new MACH37 cybersecurity accellerator backed by the state of Virginia. Today, the organization announced its first group of companies at a launch event held during an industry tour with Governor Bob McDonnell. While there, Governor McDonnell also announced a new partnership between CIT and Virginia Tech to deploy a cyber test range to facilitate the testing and development of new cybersecurity products from MACH37™ portfolio companies and support Virginia Tech research and education activities.

The MACH37™ Cyber Accelerator is modeled after existing accelerators, such as the Y Combinator, TechStars and 500 Startups, but specializes in launching cybersecurity startup companies. The program consists of two 90-day sessions per year. Participants receive an initial company investment from the CIT GAP Fund upon acceptance to the program, and at the end, companies make Demo Day presentations to professional investors. If they are successful, they receive a second investment from the CIT GAP Fund and private investors.

The first group of companies include:

Cypherpath, led CEO Kevin Rogers, out of Herndon, Va. The company offers a new generation of services built around their virtual cyber test range and virtual cloud, which provides teams with the ability to create, modify, view and control virtualized environments independently and collaboratively. Cypherpath provides the only on demand platform for realistic cyber-experiences.

Key Cybersecurity, Inc. led by CEO Shawn R. Key, out of Dumfries, Va. CyberMerlin, Key’s flagship product, employs algorithms and forensics investigative technologies that patrol enterprise environments and report abusive behavior, providing a proactive system that enhances network security.

Pierce Global Threat Intelligence, led by CEO Roy Stephan, out of Dunn Loring, Va. Pierce creates tailored and automated threat analysis based on each company’s individual enterprise network, ecosystem traffic and flow data. The real time, raw, previously expensive and cumbersome threat data is then filtered and prioritized based on the individual company ecosystem, giving companies the ability to react to threats with a greater level of confidence.

CyberLingua, led by CEO Jim Hunt, out of Tyson’s Corner, Va. CyberLingua uses technologies developed over decades in the U.S. intelligence community to identify zero-day threats before they can cause damage. Instead of manually tracking logs or anomalies, analysts will now be able to identify and synthesize patterns and weak signals in cyber-data and their associated combinations of risks underlying advanced persistent zero-day threats.

Sikernes, led by CEO Ethan Allen, out of Bozeman, Mt. Silkernes provides a Cybersecurity Analytics Platform (CAP) for organizations to analyze and understand the effectiveness and efficacy of cybersecurity expenditures.

“As part of our economic development agenda, we are working to bring greater investment into the rapidly growing technology industries such as cyber security, as well as encourage companies and investors to look to Virginia,” Governor McDonnell said.