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Money Moves

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

Plus, ZeroFox wraps its $350 million acquisition, video game vets launch a new studio with $6 million and the city approves a $4 billion budget.

(L to R) Huntress founders, Chris Bisnett, Kyle Hanslovan and John Ferrell at Nasdaq MarketSite. (Courtesy)
The Port of Baltimore’s recent reopening to cargo traffic is one of the latest positive economic developments in a region affected, but not totally sidelined, by either the Key Bridge Collapse or broader investment climate trends.

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:

TEDCO investments and grants

More investments spotted in SEC filings


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

Money Moves is a feature where we chart the raises, mergers and other funding news of tech companies across the region on the third Wednesday of the month. Have a tip? Email us at baltimore@technical.ly.
Companies: Backpack Healthcare / Huntress / Catalio Capital Management / NextStep Robotics / ZeroFox / University of Maryland BioPark / University of Maryland, College Park / City of Baltimore / TEDCO

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