2020 Best Tech Startups in Maryland

March 19, 2020December 2, 2022 thetechtribune

The Tech Tribune staff has compiled the very best tech startups in Maryland. In doing our research, we considered several factors including but not limited to:

Revenue potential
Leadership team
Brand/product traction
Competitive landscape

Additionally, all companies must be independent (unacquired), privately owned, at most 10 years old, and have received at least one round of funding in order to qualify.

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1. CuriosityStream

Founded: 2015

Also honored in: 2019 Best Tech Startups in Maryland

“Dive Deep into Documentaries.

John S. Hendricks, Founder of Discovery Communications and the Curiosity Project, has spent his life seeking the answers to our most enduring questions and creating ways for television viewers across the globe to satisfy their curiosity. Hendricks harnessed this passion to create CuriosityStream, an undertaking meant to inspire ardent learners with the most curious minds of our time: visionaries in every major field of human endeavor, tackling the greatest challenges of our era.

Over 1,500 of documentaries available worldwide. New content added weekly. Dive Deep into science, technology, civilization, the human spirit and more.”

2. ZeroFOX

Founded: 2013

Also honored in:

“ZeroFOX, the innovator of social media & digital security, protects modern organizations from dynamic security, brand and physical risks across social, mobile, web and collaboration platforms. Using targeted data collection and artificial intelligence-based analysis, ZeroFOX protects modern organizations from targeted phishing attacks, credential compromise, data exfiltration, brand hijacking, executive and location threats and more. Recognized as a Leader in Digital Risk Monitoring by Forrester, the patented ZeroFOX SaaS platform processes and protects millions of posts, messages and accounts daily across the social and digital landscape, spanning LinkedIn, Facebook, Slack, Twitter, HipChat, Instagram, Reddit, Pastebin, Tumblr, YouTube, VK, mobile app stores, the deep & dark web, domains and more.”

3. Aledade

Founded: 2014

Also honored in:

“Aledade is a new company with an old-fashioned goal: putting doctors back in control of health care. Aledade partners with independent, primary care physicians to provide everything the doctors need to create and run an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) – from business and practice transformation services to upfront capital and a cutting-edge technology platform. Our customized solutions – and our continuous, on-the-ground support of our physician partners – will help doctors in all types of communities across America preserve their autonomy, deliver better care to their patients, reduce overall costs, and keep independent physician practices flourishing.”

4. Silent Circle

Founded: 2012

“Silent Circle is a recognized innovator in enterprise privacy delivered through a revolutionary platform of devices, software and services. Our mission is to be the world’s most trusted secure communications company by delivering privacy without compromise. We enable enterprises to regain privacy with their employees, partners and customers in a mobile first world where privacy is nearly extinct.

Silent Circle was co-founded by Mike Janke, security expert and former Navy SEAL; Phil Zimmermann, co-founder of PGP, developer of the ZRTP protocol and 2015 inductee into the Internet Hall of Fame; and Jon Callas, creator of Apple’s whole disk encryption software and co-founder of PGP Corporation.”

5. Xometry

Founded: 2013

Also honored in:

“Xometry is your one-stop shop for manufacturing on demand.

Xometry, recently voted one of the “DC’s Coolest Companies,” brings together manufacturing and technology to provide 24/7 access to instant pricing, expected lead time and manufacturability feedback on custom parts for engineers and designers across the U.S.

Xometry’s online quoting portal and nationwide network of hundreds of partner manufacturing facilities guarantees consistently fast lead times while offering a broad array of capabilities, including CNC Machining, 3D Printing, Injection Molding, Sheet Metal and Casting.”

6. IronNet Cybersecurity

Founded: 2014

Also honored in:

“Founded in 2014, IronNet Cybersecurity is a global cybersecurity leader that is revolutionizing how enterprises, industries, and governments secure their networks. IronNet takes the skills of its top-notch cybersecurity operators with their real-world, public and private sector, offensive and defensive cyber experience, and integrates their deep tradecraft knowledge into its industry-leading products to solve the most challenging cyber problems facing industry today.

IronNet’s solutions leverage behavioral analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence techniques to help public and private enterprises across critical infrastructure detect unknown threats. Our ability to share the derived raw intelligence with peer enterprises in real-time and at machine speed, uniquely enables industries and governments to collectively defend against well-funded nation state and cyber criminal threats.”

7. IonQ

Founded: 2016

“IonQ is developing world-leading general-purpose quantum information processors. Our unique trapped-ion approach combines unmatched physical performance, perfect qubit replication, optical networkability, and highly-optimized algorithms to create a quantum computer that is as scalable as it is powerful, and that will support a broad array of applications across a variety of industries.”

8. Fugue

Founded: 2012

Also honored in:

“Fugue, a leader in cloud infrastructure automation and security, provides solutions to ensure that enterprise’s cloud resources are always provisioned according to a single source of truth — and stay that way throughout the resources’ lifetime. Fugue’s Cloud Automation & Security solution is the only solution that can restore all infrastructure back to the last known state.

Privately held and headquartered in Maryland, Fugue was named a Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing 2017 by Gartner.”

9. Dragos

Founded: 2016

Also honored in: 2019 Best Tech Startups in Maryland

“Dragos, Inc. is an industrial cybersecurity company focused on some of the community’s hardest problems. The ecosystem our team has built is specifically tailored for industrial environments such as those found in industrial control system (ICS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and Distributed Control System (DCS) environments. Our software platform and services help operators protect infrastructure sites such as power grids, water distribution sites, oil refineries, gas pipelines, manufacturing, and more. The Dragos team exists to safeguard civilization.”

10. Protenus

Founded: 2014

Also honored in:

“Protenus helps hospitals protect patient privacy in electronic medical records by detecting privacy breaches in real-time. Our solution is a lightweight analytical tool focused on protecting against insider threats.

Built for overburdened hospital compliance & security officers, our analytics filter through the millions of activities that take place in a hospital every day in order to proactively identify HIPAA violations. Our solution deeply understands how patient data should be used and, as a result, can accurately determine when it is used improperly. We promise to help hospital compliance officers sleep soundly at night, knowing that all hospital employees are only using data within the bounds of their clinical or administrative responsibilities.”