Virtru, one of the first awardees of D.C.’s $10 million fund to attract tech startups to downtown, is opening its new headquarters this week with the goal of making the 17,000-square-foot space a hub for local cybersecurity companies to gather.
The software company's move to 1801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW was funded by more than $300,000 from the District’s Vitality Fund. The multiyear performance-based incentive program, spearheaded by the Bowser administration, is designed to get emerging tech businesses to put down roots in downtown.
Virtru had to commit to five years in D.C. at a time when companies are exiting downtowns amid the pandemic-driven trend toward remote work.
CEO John Ackerly told me the funding was “a pilot light” that made D.C.’s promise of being at the intersection of policy, technology and business tangible.
“The D.C. government stepped up,” he said.
Virtru, for its part, wants to step up and be a community pillar in the Golden Triangle area, he added.
“The name of the office is not Virtru headquarters or Virtru workplace. It's The Hub and it’s us facilitating, bringing together the business and cybersecurity community where there's a real void,” he said.
The company's former office — 8,000 square feet at 1130 Connecticut Ave. NW — was nearly half the size of its new digs.
Virtru provides an email encryption platform that allows companies to audit and control emails and file sharing internally to the point files can be revoked and access denied even after it's sent. It provides its services to government agencies like the Department of Defense, nonprofits like D.C.'s Freedom House and corporate customers like Verizon Communications Inc.
Ackerly sees his business having a broad amount of applications so, to narrow the field, he prefers instead of "doing our own integrations, but really bringing the community together" to tackle cybersecurity problems. Branding his new company's HQ as a hub opens Virtru up to having its product integrate better with other local cybersecurity applications and fulfill some of its community resource obligations that are part of being a Vitality Fund recipient.
Being a community resource, specifically a job creator, is also a requirement to receive assistance from the Vitality Fund. If Virtru meets its eligibility requirements and performance terms, it is eligible to receive $855,000, according to the mayor’s office. Some of those requirements are that 51% of Virtru's new hires must be District residents; in the aggregate, at least 50% of the company's 200 employees’ work hours must be in the office; and it must implement or participate in a workforce development program that offers D.C. residents opportunities for training or employment within the business or the industry in which it operates.
Virtru was the first of two awardees; branding and marketing consultancy Quadrant Strategies was awarded funding to triple its D.C. office space. Architecture firm KTGY was also said to have received funds to move its office from Tysons but city officials have said it did not take Vitality money.
Virtru has committed to a 13-year lease, and Ackerly said he isn’t worried about in-office demands causing attrition because he’s prioritized making it a place of continual learning and collaboration, and not “just doing the same work here that they would do at home. That wouldn’t feel good and there probably would be attrition.”
The company has raised $136 million in venture capital with its last deal being a $60 million Series C in 2022, according to PitchBook.
He doesn’t have any plans to seek additional venture capital funding because he doesn’t want to dilute employees’ equity.
“We are definitely hiring. We are definitely growing. We're just doing it like we always had, just like cobblers one step at a time,” said Ackerly. “This is a critical foundational component to the next stage of the business.”
