Virginia cybersecurity startup OP?Q Networks has burst out of stealth mode with a $21 million funding round led led by Washington, D.C.-based Columbia Capital.
There are so many point products in cybersecurity that customers are overwhelmed and have to bolt it all together themselves," OP?Q CEO Glenn Hazard told DC Inno in an interview. ""I don't believe in a bolt-on strategy. Security should be embedded at the start."
Hazard is well-versed in the world of cybersecurity. He and fellow OP?Q founder Ken Ammon previously led cybersecurity startup Xceedium, which was acquired in 2015 by CA Technologies. OP?Q brings that knowledge and experience to a new aspect of cybersecurity, integrating different elements of security systems that may be from different companies.
"The name comes from understanding how there's a transparent need to see across infrastructure from one point, but at the same time wanting it to not be visible," Hazard said. "One option is to look at a company like OP?Q where they can literally manage security for their infrastructure from the cloud."
OP?Q has been very quiet until now, but it's actually built on the acquisition this summer of New Jersey startup Bat Blue Networks. Identifying what Bat Blue was doing as a central part of what they wanted OP?Q to accomplish, Hazard and Ammon acquired it and connected it with their Herndon headquarters to form what is now OP?Q. $21 million is a pretty solid way to kick off a company, and fits the way the local cybersecurity scene keeps heating up.
"What we're doing makes it so you don't need to keep up with so many different upgrades and management systems for all of the point products," Hazard said. "It keeps it all together in a new ecosystem. Simplifying systems and keeping them secure is what any company or public agency wants."
