The Dingman Center Angels is a Maryland based angel investment group that provides funding to early-stage companies located within the Mid-Atlantic region. Their members are entrepreneurs, CXO's, venture capitalists and business leaders who have founded, funded and built world-class companies. They come from a wide array of industry expertise and in association with the Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship, create an extensive entrepreneurial community.  They are looking for innovative, technology-driven startup companies addressing a significant market opportunity where their investment and expertise can make a difference. They introduce entrepreneurs to potential investors through presentations at monthly meetings which are held from September to June.  Their group looks to invests $100,000 to $1,000,000 in seed/early stage companies, and will often syndicate with other angel groups and VC’s for deals up to $2 million. The Dingman Center Angels is not a fund and does not invest as a group. Their members collaborate on due diligence but make individual investment decisions. Each member makes their own thorough review of all information, including speaking with representatives of the company.

Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

ClearSky is a venture capital/growth equity group that invests in innovative companies, with a special focus on (i) technologies driving the energy transition, climate related technologies, and sustainability, (ii) the digital transformation of enterprise customers’ operations and communications, and (iii) disruptive solutions for cybersecurity, industrial security, and critical infrastructure security.

ClearSky

Blackstone Group is a private equity firm that invests in private equity, real estate, public debt, equity, non-investment grade credit, real assets, and secondary funds.

Blackstone Group

Gula Tech Adventures are cyber security industry veterans helping the next generation with funding and our experience. The Gulas are best known for their work at Tenable Network Security where Ron was co-founder and CEO and Cyndi built the operations, licensing and business practices. Before Tenable, they helped corporations and governments catch hackers with their Dragon intrusion detection system. Now they are running a cyber security investment fund and working with the next generation of cyber security start-ups assisting with their product roadmaps, participating in their capital raises and helping them build their companies.

Gula Tech Adventures

Trog Hawley Capital is a single-family office that aims to identify companies with outstanding founders and management teams and provide them with capital and strategic support.  Trog Hawley Capital adopts a long-term investment strategy, which enables them to align with founders and support them in realizing their vision. They invest across various stages of a company's growth, ranging from seed to pre-IPO. The company has a diverse portfolio that spans different industries, including big data, cybersecurity, e-commerce, energy infrastructure, enterprise, fintech, gaming/esports, and health tech.

Trog Hawley Capital

Insight Partners is a global software investor that partners with growth-stage technology and software companies. Insight has a deep focus in Fintech, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, DevOps, and Healthcare sectors. Across their people and their portfolio, they encourage a culture around a core belief growth equals opportunity. As of December 31, 2022, the firm has over $75B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 750 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO.

Insight Partners

Inky

Inky is a cyber-security company that secures email against phishing. It is a cloud-based email security platform that make Inky Phish Fence, an email protection gateway that uses sophisticated AI, machine learning, and computer vision algorithms to block deep sea phishing attacks that get through every other system. Inky Phish Fence can either quarantine suspicious emails or deliver them with disabled links and user-friendly warnings. It is easy to deploy for Office 365, Exchange, or G Suite. Inky was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in College Park, Maryland.

INKY is a cloud-based email security platform that utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision techniques to detect and block zero-day phishing emails and malware. The company's patented technology incorporates sophisticated algorithms to effectively sanitize emails, rewrite malicious links, mitigate sender impersonation, and identify signs of forgery. INKY's solution acts as an additional layer of defense before emails reach the user's inbox, blocking thousands of malicious phishing attempts that incumbent email protection systems fail to catch.

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INKY is a cloud-based email security platform that utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision techniques to detect and block zero-day phishing emails and malware. The company's patented technology incorporates sophisticated algorithms to effectively sanitize emails, rewrite malicious links, mitigate sender impersonation, and identify signs of forgery. INKY's solution acts as an additional layer of defense before emails reach the user's inbox, blocking thousands of malicious phishing attempts that incumbent email protection systems fail to catch.
A notable aspect of INKY's approach is its use of interactive banners added to each email, providing users with color-coded warnings, recommendations, and policy guidance. These banners enable users to report suspected phishing attempts with a single click, even from mobile devices. INKY's platform adapts in real-time to evolving threats and offers capabilities such as outbound email scanning for sensitive data, encryption, and sender behavior modeling to detect potential account compromises.
In June 2020, INKY raised USD 20 million in a Series B funding round led by Insight Partners, bringing the total investment in the company to USD 31.6 million at the time. This funding enabled INKY to accelerate its global expansion efforts and further develop its innovation roadmap. The company experienced rapid adoption among large enterprises and witnessed a significant increase in phishing attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Key customers and partnerships
INKY has established partnerships with IT and cybersecurity companies such as Agio, a managed service provider (MSP) headquartered in New York. Agio offers INKY's solution to its customers, citing the informative banners and ease of client onboarding as notable benefits. INKY has also gained traction with notable enterprise customers, including two insurance companies that closed deals with the company in late 2020.

Abnormal Security is a cloud-based email security platform that leverages AI and behavioral data science to detect and block sophisticated email attacks that evade traditional email gateways. The company's core offering is an inbound email security solution that protects against business email compromise, phishing, malware, ransomware, social engineering, and other advanced threats.
Abnormal's platform establishes a baseline of normal behavior for each employee, vendor, and application within an organization's email environment. By understanding "known good" activity patterns, the AI can precisely identify anomalies and remediate malicious emails in real-time before they reach inboxes. This behavioral analysis approach provides more effective threat detection compared to traditional email security focused on indicators of compromise.
The platform integrates directly with cloud email providers like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace via an API, enabling rapid deployment without the need for a secure email gateway. Beyond inbound email protection, Abnormal also offers account takeover protection and SOC automation capabilities.
Abnormal expanded its platform in April 2023 to provide security monitoring and threat detection for collaboration apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. By ingesting identity signals from these additional data sources, the AI models can better understand cross-channel behavior and identify lateral movement by attackers across an enterprise's cloud environment.
Key customers and partnerships
Abnormal Security works with organizations across industries including government, finance, energy, manufacturing, technology, and consulting. Notable customers include PagerDuty, UserTesting, and Vungle, amongst others.
In January 2022, Abnormal announced a partnership with Microsoft to enhance native protection capabilities within Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

Abnormal Security

Menlo Security provides cloud-based security solutions centered around its patented Isolation Core technology. This technology creates an "air gap" between users and the internet, isolating the browsing process in the cloud to protect against web-based threats like phishing, drive-by exploits, and zero-day attacks. The company's Cloud Security Platform leverages this Isolation Core to enable secure internet access and browsing without compromising user experience.
Menlo Security's solutions aim to eliminate malware infections, including ransomware, by moving the fetch and execute functions of web browsing away from users' devices and networks. Only safe, non-executable content is rendered on users' devices, providing a seamless browsing experience while mitigating risks. The platform is designed to help organizations embrace cloud transformations securely without sacrificing data visibility, control, or user experience.
In March 2019, Menlo Security partnered with By Light to deliver a cloud-based internet isolation (CBII) solution for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), protecting over 3.5 million users worldwide across the US Department of Defense and its branches. This solution leverages Menlo's Cloud Platform and Isolation Core to secure internet access for defense officials deployed globally.
In January 2023, Menlo Security's Cloud Security Platform powered by its Isolation Core received Authorization to Operate (ATO) at the moderate level under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). The company also announced the detection of "Highly Evasive Adaptive Threats" (HEAT) that bypass traditional security defenses, highlighting the need for its Zero Trust approach.
Additionally, Menlo Security acquired an undisclosed company in February 2023, expanding its capabilities to address the evolving threat landscape.

Menlo Security

<div>
 
 Darktrace is a global cybersecurity company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and respond to cyber threats in real-time. Founded in 2013 in Cambridge, UK, Darktrace has developed an AI-powered &quot;Enterprise Immune System&quot; that learns the normal behavior patterns within an organization's digital systems and identifies anomalies that may indicate cyber attacks or vulnerabilities.
 
 
 
 
 Darktrace's core product offerings include Darktrace PREVENT, DETECT, RESPOND, and HEAL. The PREVENT module proactively identifies risks and vulnerabilities. DETECT uses machine learning to spot threats in real-time across networks, cloud environments, IoT devices, and email systems. RESPOND provides autonomous response capabilities to contain active threats within seconds. The HEAL module, slated for release in 2023, aims to restore systems to pre-attack states.
 
 
 
 
 The company's technology can monitor up to 1 million devices and is compatible with major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Darktrace claims its AI can reduce threat investigation time by 92% compared to manual methods. The platform provides visualization tools like the Threat Visualizer to help analysts investigate anomalies.
 
 
 
 
 In April 2021, Darktrace went public on the London Stock Exchange at a USD 2.37 billion valuation. The company reported having over 9,400 customers across more than 100 countries. The company's AI cybersecurity solutions are used by organizations of all sizes across various industries.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 
 Darktrace's client base includes notable companies like Allianz, Airbus, and the city of Las Vegas. In June 2024, Darktrace won Microsoft UK's Partner of the Year Award, highlighting the growing collaboration between the two companies. Darktrace's AI tools are now fully compatible with Microsoft Copilot for Security, allowing customers to analyze Darktrace's security data using natural language processing. This integration aims to speed up threat response and investigations for joint customers.
 
</div>

Darktrace

Material Security is an email security company that pioneered the use of zero-trust techniques to protect email accounts and their contents. The company's platform automatically classifies and reacts to sensitive content in emails, securing critical messages without impacting productivity. Its key product offerings include account takeover protection, which prevents attackers from hijacking other services by adding a verification step before granting access to password resets and critical messages. The platform also offers phishing "herd immunity" that allows a single report from any employee to protect the entire organization instantly.
Material Security provides visibility and control over an organization's entire email footprint, surfacing foundational risk factors and offering one-click remediation tools claimed to expedite investigations. The service integrates with Office 365 and Google Workspace via APIs without affecting MX records or email delivery. As of May 2022, the company served customers such as Chubb Ltd., Compass Group plc, Roblox Corp., Brex Inc., Lyft Inc., Mars Inc., Databricks Inc., and DoorDash Inc.
In May 2022, Material Security raised USD 100 million in Series C funding at a USD 1.1 billion valuation, achieving unicorn status just two years after its official product launch. The company planned to use the funding to expand its sales, marketing, and engineering teams, extend into new areas like government, and grow internationally. As of May 2024, Material Security had been acquired, with details of the acquisition included in the "Overview" section.

Material Security

Tessian is an email security company that focuses on protecting enterprises from threats arising due to human error. It leverages machine learning to build behavioral models for all employees and automatically detect security threats such as business email compromise, data exfiltration, phishing, and accidental data loss. Tessian's platform, referred to as "human layer security," notifies employees of these issues to help improve individual security behaviors.
In May 2021, Tessian had raised a total of USD 123.7 million in funding and was valued at USD 500 million. At that time, the company planned to invest in research and development, expand its product offerings beyond email security, and grow its workforce globally.
Tessian's approach proved effective, as evidenced by a report from July 2022 that found US employees sent an average of four emails to the wrong person each month in the first nine months of 2021. Nearly one-third of employees who reported such incidents indicated their business lost a client or customer due to the error.
In December 2023, Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, acquired Tessian. The acquisition aimed to combine Proofpoint's threat and data loss protection technology with Tessian's AI-powered behavioral and dynamic detection capabilities. This integration was expected to provide organizations with a comprehensive defense against human-targeted threats and prevent data loss across various collaboration channels.

Tessian

Solutions that use AI to detect and block email-based attacks including phishing, business email compromise, malware, impersonation, spam, and data exfiltration.

Solutions that use AI to eliminate email-based attacks caused by inadvertent or malicious acts by internal users from leaving the network.

Solutions that encrypt emails for secure access and collaboration.

Solutions that automatically detect and prevent accidental data loss caused by sending emails to the wrong recipients or with wrong attachments.

Solutions that provide user awareness training on email-based threats.

Solutions that securely store emails in an accessible location for future retrieval.

Uses AI/ML and behavioral analysis to detect suspicious activity in emails

Uses NLP to detect suspicious activity in emails

Solutions in this industry hub are offered under a B2B SaaS model

Inky

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