A Linthicum Heights company is building a more secure form of wireless communication and is hoping to raise millions in venture capital to bring its technology to more industries.
Rampart Communications raised $10 million last year through a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) round, which is financing that converts to equity at a later date. CEO Anthony Diekemper hopes to couple that funding with a $20 million Series A round for a total of around $30 million in funding. The company previously raised a $3.5 million seed round that closed in 2021. Rampart will use the proceeds from the Series A round to develop technology for the defense and intelligence sectors as well as give itself 18 to 24 months of runway to prepare for a launch into the private sector. Outside of protecting wireless signals, Rampart hopes to improve the capacity and efficiency of wireless communication.
The company has a different ethos from other wireless communication and cybersecurity companies that have a similar goal of protecting messages. Cybersecurity companies usually try to prevent cybercrime by finding criminals or responding to threats while Rampart focuses on protecting all of the information in a message.
“If cybersecurity is making better seatbelts, we are putting the car in a sealed tube,” founder Matt Robinson said.
Rampart's protection goes beyond encryption, a basic building block of data security where a piece of information, like an email, is transformed from a readable message into code until it gets to the proper recipient. The problem is that outside entities can still see some of the basic message since encryption only protects the message data, not the signal itself. Rampart, founded in 2016, tries to protect the signal that carries the message to different recipients.
Rampart has filed around 130 patent applications based around wireless technology to protect its innovations. The company has grown massively over the past several years, from five employees in 2021 to around 45 in 2023.
The company’s two technical founders, Robinson and Keith Palmisano both have experience working with the federal government. Rampart is targeting the government, satellite communications, financial services, manufacturing and health care industries for initial expansion, but hopes its technology can become a new industry standard for wireless communication.
“We think it ultimately goes into every wireless device,” Chief Financial Officer Sam Bemiss said.
The recent high-profile cyberattacks against Ukraine from the Russian military, coupled with an increased fear of China’s ability to infiltrate communication networks is increasing demand for new forms of secure communications. To go along with its security infrastructure, Rampart is also developing technology to increase the amount of data that can be transmitted on a wireless network.
The company has several pieces of technology that build on its secure wireless communication services to serve more specific clients. Rampart hopes to build software for the autonomous vehicle industry as municipalities like Westminster and Howard County explore bringing self-driving public transit to Maryland. Rampart’s technology will enable two vehicles, like two self-driving cars for example, to communicate with each other securely without pre-existing infrastructure outside of a wireless connection.
