Northrop Grumman [NOC] and the bwtech@UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) Cyber Incubator announced Oct. 27 that two more cyber startups have graduated from the company’s Cync program, including the first international startup graduate.
iWebGate of Perth, Australia and Light Point Security of Baltimore, Md., both completed the Cync scholarship program bwtech@UMBC. Bwtech is a 71-acre research and technology community at UMBC with over 500,000 square feet of office and laboratory space. It contains more than 120 technology and life science companies at all stages of development and bwtech@UMBC offers collaboration with university faculty and students, the program said.
Cync is a global startup initiative created by Northrop Grumman and bwtech@UMBC in 2011 aimed at cultivating “the brightest ideas in cybersecurity and commercialize these innovations for use in the federal marketspace,” the company said.
iWebGate has already developed a patented technology that provides “flexible, efficient, secure, and cost effective Software Defined Wide Area Network solution enabling connectivity to any site or device, on any network, anywhere in the world,” Northrop Grumman said. This capability deploys a multi-tenant security-tested “on-demand network zone for provisioning services” between private networks and the Internet.
Light Point Security was founded by two former NSA cybersecurity experts and invented the concept of using a remote, isolated web browser to address issues of network security that traditional detection-based security products cannot keep up with. This service makes it possible to clock on any website without threatening the network and has customers including Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, health care organizations, and the federal government,” Northrop Grumman said.
The newest Cync occupants following these two graduates, are the London, U.K.-based Silobreaker; Baltimore-based Leverege, OptioLabs, and Huntress Labs; the New York-based GuardX, Inc.; and ParaTools, from the University of Oregon.
“bwtech@UMBC’s Cync partnership with Northrop Grumman continues to attract and develop promising cyber security product companies domestically and abroad. Both Light Point Security and iWebGate have developed innovative technologies to fill existing gaps in cyber security and add to the thriving cyber security ecosystem in Maryland,” Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park, said in a statement.
“The technology emerging from the Cync program is truly leading-edge. That’s why we launched it; to get these ideas out of the proverbial ‘garage,’ cultivated and making a difference for our customer. I continue to be amazed at the endless stream of innovation and pleased that we can help these companies nurture their technology and business plans to make a difference in global security,” Chris Valentino, program director for cyber and intelligence mission solutions at Northrop Grumman, added.
The company and incubator highlighted that previous Cync graduates include DB Networks, KoolSpan, AccelerEyes (ArrayFire), Five Directions, Oculis Labs, and Ayasdi.