RedOwl to double Baltimore workforce

RedOwl Analytics plans to double its workforce in the next few years, its leaders said Tuesday.
Cofounder Guy Filippelli discussed the plans during a visit by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to RedOwl’s Federal Hill headquarters. The governor used the visit to highlight the state’s commitment to cybersecurity and to veteran hiring.
RedOwl was recently the target of the first investment made by TEDCO Capital Partners’ Veterans’ Opportunity Fund. The capital group is a for-profit affiliate of the state-backed TEDCO. Filippelli would not disclose the size of the investment, but called it “a substantive chunk” of the firm’s recent $4.6 million round of Series A funding.
Filipelli is a veteran, as are six other of RedOwl’s 25 Baltimore employees (four work out of a small New York City office).
“That’s a pretty high percentage for a tech company,” he said.
Filippelli demonstrated the company’s Reveal software for O’Malley. The software pulls in email, stock and phone records to allow for forensic investigations after the fact or to allow companies to police themselves to stop security threats or other concerns. Investigators can search for email keywords and find when that word or phrase was used, how often and by whom.
“This is what a company official at a bank really wishes they could do with all this digital exhaust,” Filippelli said as he demonstrated the software for O’Malley, using a fake dataset.
Currently, Reveal is being used by seven RedOwl customers, with none currently in Maryland, though Filippelli told the governor he is in conversations with the Baltimore Police Department and Baltimore city’s state’s attorney office about possibly using the software in investigations, like tracking communications between gang members.
The company has been based in Baltimore since its founding, and in Federal Hill since October 2012.
“We’re able to get people here from anywhere in Baltimore and anywhere outside Baltimore,” he said. “The talent in this area is not only good, but hard-working and reliable.”
In addition to the Veterans’ Opportunity Fund investment, the company was also an investment of TEDCO Capital Partners’ Propel Baltimore Fund and won $100,000 in the 2013 InvestMaryland Challenge. O’Malley called RedOwl part of the state’s “digital harbor vision” for the city.
“Baltimore is an ideal place for companies that want to work and explore and create opportunities in this land of cybersecurity,” he said, quipping, “We’ve been doing homeland security since 1814.”
Though O’Malley thanked Filippelli for hiring fellow veterans, he said the state’s goal of achieving full employment for veterans is “very much a work in progress.”