Last month, we reported on the Startup Arlington Competition that will result in a new tech company moving into the area. Concluding the competition, Arlington Economic Development announced that Montana-based Oppleo Security is the winner. From a pool of more than 75 applicants, across 14 states, and from 13 different industries, Oppleo won due to how they will benefit from the area and their business growth plans.
“Oppleo Security is the type of company that we believe can benefit from being located in Arlington given their customer base and target market. These are the types of companies we are actively working to bring to Arlington,” said Darren Stauffer, Arlington Economic Development’s Director of Innovation Initiatives. “Being in our region, which is the epicenter of the cyber security space, should provide a lot of the resources to allow Oppleo to scale.”
As the winner of the competition, Oppleo will receive three, free months of office space with Carr Workspaces, free rent at the Residence Inn in Rosslyn, free access to the Metro and Capital Bikeshare, and legal support from the Arlington Law Group. The company plans to hire as many as seven new employees working in the Arlington area by next year.
Prior to winning the competition, they received funding from the Center for Innovative Technology in Virginia and are also a graduate of the MACH37 Cybersecurity Accelerator. As a result, their current customer base is primarily spread throughout Virginia and Maryland, resulting in the team regularly traveling to the area. Between their active customer base in the region, investor outlook, and being in the public sector’s backyard, Oppleo has a lot to gain from winning the competition.
“It is an incredible honor and opportunity to be selected from such a large pool of amazing companies,” said Oppleo CEO Roderick Flores. “Arlington is an excellent location for us to scale our business. 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. Arlington is currently one of the fastest growing cities for startups giving opportunities for partnership and collaboration, plus there are almost 10,000 investors located in the region.”
Oppleo’s software, Sikernes, lets companies automate threat and vulnerability analysis, making the process more affordable. “We bring the same sophisticated and proven risk analysis techniques used in most other industries to cybersecurity. Spending on cybersecurity is currently $75.4B per year and increasing rapidly (10.25% CAGR), but breaches and data loses continue as if there were no defenses in place. Using Sikernes, our customers will understand where their cybersecurity weak spots are. Sikernes will help them find the lowest cost approach to achieving an acceptable level of exposure,” stated Flores.
Oppleo was founded in 2014 and was founded by Roderick Flores and Bri Rolston.
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