MD lacks ‘funding opportunities for really early-stage companies’ [VIDEO]

If Maryland wants a bigger, richer cybersecurity industry, it’ll need younger companies with new ideas — and that’s going to take more early-stage money.
That slightly more specific, but altogether familiar, call for more cash came from Zuly Gonzalez, cofounder of cybersecurity startup Light Point Security, speaking at Technically Baltimore’s cybersecurity-focused Meetup on Tuesday.
And while Maryland is lauded by state politicians as a cybersecurity hub, the state falls short with respect to the amount of venture capital available for small companies.
“One area we’re lacking is funding opportunities for really early-stage companies,” Gonzalez said during her five-minute “lightning talk” at Growing Maryland’s Cybersecurity Industry.
Watch a video of Gonzalez’s talk:

As Technically Baltimore reported in its cybersecurity feature this week, startups like Light Point, along with larger defense contracting firms and federal government agencies like the National Security Agency, are quickly making Maryland the hub of cybersecurity in the U.S.
But for Baltimore to thrive as a piece in that cybersecurity industry, it needs to depend on smaller cyber startups, all of which need capital funding to grow larger by way of new hires that can offer more services or help increase production of products like the one Light Point Security produces: Light Point Web, which lets users browse the Internet by running web browsers in the cloud on isolated servers, which means that any malware that might potentially infect a user’s computer never even has an opportunity to reach that user’s machine.
“Once we have that [funding], we could be the leader in cybersecurity in the country,” said Gonzalez.