Baltimore Money Moves: Howard County cyber company lands $150M Series D

Here, we break down some multimillion-dollar raises and deals in local cyber and video game development, as well as the city’s newly approved budget and various other Money Moves throughout the area.

First, take a look at the latest rankings of regional employers with the most tech job postings in the last month, courtesy of data from Lightcast that we use in our proprietary data from our Tech Economy Dashboard. This data is part of our monthly look at which companies hire for tech jobs in Baltimore’s metropolitan statistical area, as well as how the hiring numbers changed since last month and how much they’re paying.

Huntress raises $150 million Series D

Located in the cyber hub of Howard County, Huntress got these funds in a round led by prior investor Sapphire Ventures, as well as Kleiner Perkins and Meritech Capital. All three firms have primary or secondary offices in Silicon Valley and include the likes of Fitbit, Salesforce and Indiegogo among their current or former portfolio companies.

Huntress, which just landed a spot in Inc.’s annual top workplaces roster, focuses on cybersecurity products and services for small- to medium-sized businesses. It completed the Series D a little over a year after closing a $60 million Series C. PitchBook reported that this latest raise also raises the company's valuation above $1.5 billion, thus making it a unicorn and anticipating a possible initial public offering. The company will use the money to conduct more research and make “strategic acquisitions” in support of its growth, according to an announcement.

“I’m pumped to double-down with Sapphire and add two high-caliber firms, Kleiner Perkins and Meritech Capital, to the fight, as this capital will directly help us continue wrecking hackers and elevating the world’s critical businesses and their managed service provider allies,” said CEO and cofounder Kyle Hanslovan.

Video game vets launch Midsummer Studios with $6 million

After some fundraising that appeared in SEC filings, Midsummer Studios officially launched this May with a $6 million seed. The new game development studio’s raise was led by Transcend Fund, with Tirta Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, 1 Up Ventures, F4 Fund, Krafton and comedian Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions participating.

Midsummer is led by an executive team with experience working on such games as “The Sims,” “XCOM” and “Marvel’s Midnight Suns,” including through regional gaming tentpole Firaxis Games.” The Hunt Valley-based company is using the funds to support the development of a life simulation game, similar to “The Sims” but with more focus on the subtleties of daily life.

“The best stories in games are written by the players,” said CEO Jake Solomon in an announcement. “At Midsummer we’re making a life sim focused on the drama of modern life, where our players will write meaningful stories just by playing, and then share those stories with the world.”

City Council approves Mayor Scott’s $4.2 billion FY2025 budget

On Monday evening, all but one sitting councilmember voted to confirm the budget that Mayor Brandon Scott proposed back in April with no amendments. Only Zeke Cohen, the Democratic nominee for the council’s presidency, could not attend and therefore didn’t vote, according to WYPR.

As part of this budget, which ultimately fell short of last fiscal year’s $4.4 billion, the city earmarked money for several tech and tech-related initiatives, including:

• $650,000 for the parking authority to pilot license plate-reading tech
• $130,000 for Baltimore City Information Technology projects, including $30,000 for the CitiWatch camera program’s “maintenance reserve” and $100,000 for “fiberoptic infrastructure”
  • The budget specifically mentions plans to update 225 CitiWatch cameras, which the IT office administer
• “Rapid forensic technology” for the police department, part of a broader investment of $2 million from state grants to support the police crime lab’s work
• $982,000 for building-to-grid tech that helps the city better track and control energy use in municipal buildings

Read the budget in full

Other Baltimore-area raises and awards:

• Austin, Texas-based private equity firm Haveli Instruments completed its previously announced $350 million acquisition of Baltimore cybersecurity giant ZeroFox. The process, which came after ZeroFox tried going public, made ZeroFox a private company again that still operates as Haveli’s subsidiary, according to the Baltimore Business Journal.
• Elkridge-based former RealLIST Startup Backpack Healthcare landed over $14 million in a Series A led by PACE Healthcare Capital. ECMC, Techstars and various other firms and angel investors participated in the round.
• NextStep Robotics, a resident of the University of Maryland BioPark, won the $200,000 grand prize at the 2024 Pitch Dingman Competition’s All Stars Track. The biotech company won the contest, put on by the University of Maryland, College Park’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, as it was launching a $1.5 million raise (for which $500,000 was already closed as of mid-May, according to an announcement) and received a $1.5 million National Institutes of Health grant.
• Biotech-focused investment firm Catalio Capital Management, which has offices in New York and Baltimore, invested $10 million in Massachusetts-based Avava, which is developing a laser skin treatment device.
• Students from Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School in the Locust Point neighborhood took home top prizes at the latest Capitol Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. Atman Patel won first place and $1,500 for a custom digital book business idea, while runner-up Johns Williams earned $250 by pitching a tool to take earwax out of earbuds.
• Out west in Chestertown, Washington College plans to use a historic $15 million donation to build a new, interdisciplinary business school.

TEDCO investments and grants

• $200,000 from the Pre-Seed Builder Fund for Baltimore’s Kubanda Cryotherapy
• $1.15 million of federal funds received to support the Federal Lab Leveraging Innovation to Products Pilot Program
• $100,000 from the Pre-Seed Builder Fund for Columbia’s Beyond Commissions
• $15.4 million worth of awards granted to researchers via the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund

More investments spotted in SEC filings

• $2.6 million for Baltimore’s BC3 Technologies
• $4.5 million for Baltimore’s Infinity Bio
• $26.8 million and $15.1 million in a pair of investments filed by Baltimore’s MyMD Pharmaceuticals on May 31
• $1.7 million for Door Ventures, which has offices in Sparks, Maryland and London, United Kingdom

This article references UM BioPark and TEDCO, both Technical.ly clients. Those relationships have no impact on this report.