startups

The Maryland Technology Development Corp. has established a $1 million fund to invest in startups launching new cyber security technologies, officials announced Wednesday.

The Baltimore tech startup incubator continues to grow and shape the city's business landscape

Maryland companies raised $64 million in venture capital funding this spring, with the biggest payouts in the Baltimore area flowing to cybersecurity startups. More companies snagged funding, but the grand tally dropped sharply.

Usually the point of a dating app is to meet someone online. A Baltimore startup wants to help people who met — or at least saw each other — for a too-brief moment offline. It's the smartphone version of the "missed connection" ad.

Baltimore startup Bitsie is seeking to boost uptake of digital currency bitcoin, beyond local businesses like bar Bad Decisions.

Silicon Valley's deals for two Columbia firms — the proposed Micros Systems acquisition last week and Sourcefire last year — strike local entrepreneurs as wins rather than losses. They want more California tech giants doing business here, more billion-dollar-plus acquisitions, more companies spinning off with the money from those deals.

Entrepreneurial success does not occur overnight, but by working together to foster stronger relationships between industry and higher education, we will make Greater Baltimore an environment where entrepreneurship thrives, innovation is fostered and robust industry growth is assured.

More millennials are creating their own jobs, either as a response to a continually crummy economy in which they can't find work, or because they would rather be their own bosses and run their own businesses.

Military veterans have a knack for building successful businesses, professionals say, but they have more trouble than non-veterans attracting investors. That's a challenge now being tackled by a new crop of Maryland-based initiatives aimed at helping veteran entrepreneurs.

Some see in 3D printing the potential for change as substantial as the industrial revolution — a different way of making things that could kick start tiny operations, disrupt entire industries and literally change the landscape.

Four startups won $100,000 each Monday night in the second InvestMaryland Challenge, a state-run competition to help promising new firms and encourage relocation from other parts of the country.

Research labs closed by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer dot the country. Maryland officials don't want the state to join that list, so Pfizer's proposal to buy AstraZeneca — which employs 3,100 in the state — has prompted local angst.

Connecting established local companies to expert help — pioneered as "economic gardening" in Littleton, Colo. — is catching on across the country. Maryland dipped its toe in the waters last year with a pilot and is officially launching its own program now, called Advance Maryland.

University of Maryland, College Park President Wallace Loh has made it his top priority to remake the college into a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, pushing the strategy not just in the business school but in almost every corner.

The Baltimore Parking Authority is looking to hire a mobile technology company to provide drivers with the option of paying city parking meters via their cell phones by the end of the year.

Move brings advanced manufacturing to Catonsville area

Five questions for Jenny Morgan, CEO of Linthicum-based basys, a benefits-administration software company, and chairwoman of the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

With vacant storefronts scattered throughout the Downtown Westminster area, city officials are partnering with a Washington non-profit to try and bring business back to Main Street.

As state lawmakers try to get Maryland's medical marijuana program off the ground, the focus has turned to the practical matter of establishing an industry to provide the drug - and the details are proving daunting.

Venture for America — like Teach For America with an entrepreneurial twist — brings college graduates from around the country to startup firms in cities such as Baltimore.

Millennial Media founder and CEO Paul Palmieri has left the Baltimore mobile advertising company for a position working with technology startups for a prominent local venture capital firm.

A proposal by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch to boost entrepreneurship is needed.

Announcing their first-ever joint agenda, the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly said Friday they will work together to pass legislation aimed at improving Maryland's business climate and boosting the state's economy.

Northrop Grumman Corp. has signed on as a sponsor of DreamIt Health Baltimore, a business accelerator already backed by Johns Hopkins University and BioHealth Innovation Inc.

Timonium-based Borrow Mini Couture rents children's designer clothing, a service aimed at parents who want to dress up their babies and young kids for special events without the eye-popping cost to buy Dior or Versace.

Alexis Ohanian rose from Howard High School to build reddit, a top-50 website, and is now paving the way for other web entrepreneurs with his book "Without Their Permission".

Maryland's manufacturing job losses — the result of cutbacks, shutdowns and technological innovations requiring fewer people — are among the nation's steepest. Advocates say it's not too late to reverse that.

Median company sues local entrepreneur for her use of a business name with the word entrepreneur

Netflix changed the way people rent movies. Amazon upended the big-box bookstore. Other online retailers have grabbed market share in niches as diverse as contact lenses and pet medications. Why not disposable razors? That's the question posed by a Catonsville-based firm — along with about half a dozen other online upstarts.

Small businesses may be the future of health insurance co-op in Maryland

In the space of several whirlwind months, the two-man Tubecore Audio designed a high-end hi-fi audio system, had a wildly successful campaign on crowdfunding site Kickstarter and is now setting up a tiny assembly plant in Gaithersburg.

Beau Dakin's and Zulu Gonzalez are competing in the Wall Street Journal's Startup of the Year program from their home at Umbo's bewitch cyber incubator

The Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, a program of Howard County's Economic Development Authority, will put up $800,000 to help start Conscious Venture Lab – a project officials say will help startup businesses that profess to serve the public good.

Much of Maryland's cybersecurity sector revolves around the federal government. But some groups and firms are trying to push the state's cybersecurity boundaries to grab more of the commercial market at a time of tighter federal budgets.

Baltimore startup Riskive's focus on social media security with FriendGuard landed the company with a host of tech industry honors and $2.2 million from prominent local and regional investors.

A Howard County startup is trying to prove that its algae bioreactors are an answer to greenhouse-gas pollution.

Come fall, you might see tweets and emails pitching private investments to you — with the blessing of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Smartphones with cracked screens seem to be nearly as common as the phones themselves. A cottage industry of repair services has popped up at mall kiosks, computer shops and college campuses.

The Carroll Business Path, announced in January 2012 by the Board of Carroll County Commissioners and launched four months later, has met with more than 250 prospective entrepreneurs exploring their chances of launching a start-up in Carroll County.

In the bowels of a building where a long-gone manufacturer once made silver, Johns Hopkins University cultivates fledgling firms. The FastForward business accelerator is a first for Hopkins, which will give it a public unveiling on Thursday.

A better future for the city begins with improved opportunities for its residents

At a time when workers are seeking greater balance between work and personal lives and job shortages persist in a range of specialized fields, some professionals are finding their perfect job by buying into it.

With Wham City Lights app, the Baltimore arts collective has found success in the mainstream.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Maryland Department of Business of Economic Development announced Monday they created a new program to help companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase to continue to grow.

The Maryland Small Business and Technology Development Center, Central Region, is offering a three-hour course, Smart Start Your Business - Howard County, Thursday, May 2, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, at the Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, 9250 Bendix Road, North, in Columbia.

Healthify argues that collecting information on whether a patient has difficulty getting food on the table or paying electricity bills could help give doctors a better picture of health risks.

Maryland's competition for startup companies — with three grand prizes of $100,000 each — narrowed to nine finalists on Monday.

BWTech Research and Technology park at UMBC hosts a Cyber Security business incubator which is now full and preparing to expand

Julie Lenzer Kirk, who heads Howard County's Maryland Center for Entrepreneurship, has been to the White House for briefings before, but has never been called upon to speak there. She got her chance last week, amid the lofty ceilings and marble-paneled walls, delivering a presentation on a nearly year-old economic development effort.