The final numbers are still being tallied, but one thing is already clear: 2021 was a record-breaking year for venture capital fundraising in Maryland.
The BBJ reported earlier this year that Maryland companies only needed three quarters to raise about $1.6 billion, surpassing the $1.26 billion raised in all of 2020, according to figures provided by the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report. The Greater Baltimore area was on the cusp of shattering its record, too, with more than $500 million in VC funding as of September.
Shortly after those totals were released, Dragos Inc. in Hanover announced $200 million in Series D funding. It was the biggest fundraising haul for a Maryland cybersecurity company since Tenable raised $250 million in 2015.
That wasn’t the only big deal of the year. Here are some that made headlines in the BBJ this year and others reported by PitchBook.
$100 million or more:
- Cellular Biomedicine Group in Rockville raised $120 million in Series A funding
- Arcellx in Gaithersburg raised $115 million in Series C funding
- Sirnaomics in Gaithersburg raised $105 million in Series E funding
- PGDx in Baltimore raised $103 million in Series C funding
- Adelade in Bethesda raised $100 million in Series D funding
- Delfi Diagnostics Inc. in Baltimore raised $100 million in Series A funding
$25 million or more:
- Valenzia Bio in Bethesda raised $79 million of Series A funding
- Netography in Annapolis raised $45 million in Series A funding
- Truebill in Silver Spring raised $45 million in Series D funding
- Adaptive Phage Therapeutics in Gaithersburg raised $41 million in Series B funding
- Huntress in Ellicott City raised $40 million in Series A funding
- Innovative Cellular Therapeutics in Rockville raised $40 million in Series C funding
- Employee Navigator in Bethesda raised $34 million in equity funding
- b.well in Baltimore raised $32 million in Series B funding
- Vita Therapeutics in Baltimore raised $32 million in series A funding
$10 million or more:
- Curio Wellness in Lutherville-Timonium raised $22 million in equity funding
- Protenus in Baltimore raised $21 million in Series D funding
- Real Time Medical Systems in Linthicum Heights raised $20 million in Series C funding
- Veralox Therapeutics in Frederick raised $17 million in Series A funding
- Immunomic Therapeutics in Rockville raised $16 million
- VLP Therapeutics in Gaithersburg raised $16 million in Series A funding
- Tradeswell in Baltimore raised $15.5 million in Series A funding
- Biopharma Gliknik Inc. in Baltimore raised $11.5 million in new capital
- Impact Analytics in Linthicum raised $11 million
- Processa Pharmaceuticals in Hanover raised $10 million by selling shares
- Kion (formerly CloudTamer.io) in Fulton raised $10 million in Series A funding
Multiple Maryland tech firms also announced this year they would be going public through special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, including BigBear.ai in Columbia, IronNet (which started in Fulton before moving to Virginia), and ZeroFox in Baltimore. All three companies said the deals were expected to come with valuations of at least $1 billion.
