Potomac Tech Wire - Sept. 12

Columbia-Based Tenable to Acquire Ermetic in $265 Million Deal

o Columbia-Based Tenable to Acquire Ermetic in $265 Million Deal
o Bethesda-based AuthMind Raises $8.5 Million in Seed Investment
o Annapolis-based Netography Spins-Off Company With Seed Funding
o DC-Based Consilio Completes Acquisition of Lawyers On Demand
o Enlightenment Capital Portfolio Company Infinite ID Acquired
o Capgemini to Acquire Financial Crimes Division of Exiger
o TEDCO Invests $250,000 in Baltimore-Based Femly
o Briefly Noted: U.S. News & World Report - Dafna Linzer, DXC Technology - Howard Boville, Raft

Columbia-Based Tenable to Acquire Ermetic in $265 Million Deal

Columbia, Md. – Tenable, the Columbia-based developer of a platform designed to secure digital assets on any computing platform, said it will pay $265 million to acquire Boston-based Ermetic, the developer of a cloud-native application protection platform. The deal, expected to close by the end of this year, includes $240 million in cash and $25 million in stock. Tenable said it plans to integrate Ermetic’s technology into its Tenable One Exposure Management Platform. Tenable CEO Amit Yoran said the move will allow his company to put additional cloud security capabilities ”into the hands of tens of thousands of customers.”

Bethesda-based AuthMind Raises $8.5 Million in Seed Investment

Bethesda, Md. – AuthMind, a Bethesda-based cybersecurity startup, announced that has raised $8.5 million in seed investment. The round was led by Ballistic Ventures with IBM Ventures coming on as a strategic investor. Using AI-based access neural networks, AuthMind has developed technology used to thwart and respond to identity-driven attacks on IT networks.

"Hackers don't hack in, they log in," said Shlomi Yanai, CEO and co-founder of AuthMind. "The Identity infrastructure is a prime target for hackers despite continuous major investments in identity security. AuthMind solves this problem by detecting in real time the gaps and weaknesses that enable such attacks while empowering identity and security teams to remediate them quickly."

Annapolis-based Netography Spins-Off Company With Seed Funding

Annapolis, Md. – Netography, an Annapolis-based cloud security company, announced that it has spun off a new company that will be led by its co-founder and chief architect Barrett Lyon. Mango Capital, which is an investor in Netography, provided seed funding for the new spin-off. The spinoff will focus on eBPF-based innovation.

“We found ourselves in the middle of a very complex yet positive innovation challenge: we have Netography Fusion, our flagship Network Defense Platform (NDP), and we have this eBPF project that grew into something larger and more compelling than we expected,” said Martin Roesch, CEO of Netography, in a news release about the spinoff. “However, as a Series A startup, we have to focus our resources, and with Fusion already gaining adoption and traction in the market, it made sense to spin out the eBPF project.”

DC-Based Consilio Completes Acquisition of Lawyers On Demand and SYKE

Washington, DC – Consilio, a DC-based provider of e-discovery, document review, and legal consulting services, said it has completed its acquisition of Lawyers On Demand (LOD), a provider of flexible legal talent, and SYKE, a legal technology consultancy, from UK private equity firm Bowmark Capital. Financial terms of the deal, first announced last month, were not disclosed. Consilio said the acquisition extends its legal services business in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. LOD has built a community of more than 4,500 on-demand legal practitioners, and began its relationship with SYKE in 2021.

Enlightenment Capital Portfolio Company Infinite ID Acquired

Chevy Chase, Md. – Enlightenment Capital, a Chevy Chase-based private investment firm, said that portfolio company Infinite ID, a New York-based developer of digital identity authentication tools, has been acquired by Atlanta’s First Advantage, a provider of employment background screening and verification systems, for $41 million in cash. Enlightenment initially invested in Infinite ID in late 2022. First Advantage said the move will build on its digital strategy and complement its existing tools, including RightID and Digital Identity Services.

Capgemini to Acquire Financial Crimes Division of Exiger

McLean, Va. – Capgemini, the French provider of business and technology transformation services with federal offices in McLean, said it will acquire the Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) division of New York-based Exiger, a developer of supply chain management software with offices in McLean. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close in the coming months, were not disclosed. Founded in 2013, the FCC division specializes in advisory, analytics and managed services relating to anti-money laundering and other types of suspicious activities. Its clients include major players in the banking, capital markets and fintech spaces.

TEDCO Invests $250,000 in Baltimore-Based Femly

Baltimore – The Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) said it has invested $250,000 in Baltimore-based Femly, a developer of smart restroom dispensers focused on natural menstrual products. The investment came from TEDCO’s Social Impact Funds, which support socially and economically disadvantaged tech entrepreneurs. Femly’s products, including liners and pads, are offered for free at over 100 schools, colleges and corporate offices, as well as sold online. Jean-Luc Park, the senior director of TEDCO’s Social Impact Funds, said the company’s “technology in the distribution, data collection and customer engagement for feminine hygiene products caught our attention.” Femly said it will use the funds to expand its team.

Briefly Noted:

(Washington, DC) DC-based digital media company U.S. News & World Report has named Dafna Linzer as its executive vice president and editorial director. Linzer has spent much of the past two decades as a reporter, editor and news executive at The Washington Post, NBC News and POLITICO.

(Ashburn, Va.) Ashburn-based IT services giant DXC Technology has named Howard Boville as its executive vice president and global lead of applications services and artificial intelligence. Boville most recently served as senior vice president of the IBM Cloud Platform for technology lifecycle services and Cybersecurity, and earlier was the CTO of Bank of America.

(Reston, Va.) Reston-based Raft, a provider of digital consulting services focussed on the national security sector, said it has won a prime contract to develop the software factory (SWF) for the Air Force's Cyber Operations. The company said the SWF will operate in multiple cloud environments at varying classification levels.