Virginia’s new cybersecurity accelerator program just graduated its first class of startups. (We hope the valedictory speech was in leet.) They spent 90 days testing their product ideas and getting intense mentoring to launch their businesses. One thing learned by MACH37’s organizers: the next wave of startups require double the startup funding. So now each new entrant will get $50k, allowing them to hire co-executives and to do more intense testing. Housed at the Center for Innovative Technology and funded by the state with $2.5M for initial startup operations, MACH37 is using investment capital to double the funding. But MACH37 CEO Rick Gordon (far right, with accelerator participants) says the program will eventually generate external funding to continue that kind of startup cash.

The spring class has 10 slots available. Applications are coming from mostly the DC region, but Rick has also seen some from the West Coast and overseas. They’re strongly incentivized to stay in Virginia after completing the MACH37 program and Rick believes the four recent grads will have operations in the state. In the big picture, Rick says the success of MACH37 just further proves that cybersecurity is a hot market. Startup entrepreneurs, with great ideas, also often need mentoring to get their ideas off the ground. Rick has focused on cybersecurity, but he sees the MACH37 accelerator model working for other sectors like data analytics.