Northern Virginia tech startups have a new neighbor as Oppleo Security moves in as the winner of the Arlington Economic Development's Startup Arlington contest. The Montana-born cybersecurity startup has won three free months of work and living space for its team after beating out around 75 other startups from across 14 different states.
Oppleo is best known for developing the Sikernes cybersecurity management and defense system. Now the small team will be able to expand their efforts in development and sales in the D.C. area.
"It is an incredible honor and opportunity to be selected from such a large pool of amazing companies," Oppelo CEO Rod Flores said in an email. "I know at least one of the other entrants and realize what a strong field we were up against."
Oppleo was chosen by a panel of five judges, who looked at non-profits, healthcare IT and other cybersecurity companies, among others. More than a dozen industries were represented among the applicants according to Darren Stauffer, a business development manager at AED working on the Startup Arlington program. Opening up the applicants eyes to the possibilities in Arlington was as much the goal as picking a winner.
"We want to show that Arlington is really tech startup friendly," Stauffer told DC Inno. "It's not just about government contracting here."
And Oppleo would certainly fit as a bridge between government and private tech work. The access to different kinds of client and talent is what made the company interested in applying in the first place.
"Arlington is an excellent location for us to scale our business," Flores said. "Not only is it in the heart of the world’s premier cybersecurity region, but it affords us ready access to many excellent resources such as potential partners, research teams, mentors, and a large talent pool."
Oppleo is currently working on proof of concept work for their technology. The philosophy of the founders is that it's better to be more proactive and manage cybersecurity risk rather than being reactive and dealing with problems only in the wake of a successful attack.
"We shift the industry from a model based upon hunches, intuition, and quick response to a one with forecasting capabilities that allow organizations to practice continuous improvement," Flores said. "We would be interested in speaking with any organization that is looking to make the switch from reacting to the cybersecurity situation to a mode where they actively manage their exposures to a cybersecurity attack."
