Last night, three young companies won one hundred thousand dollars each from the Invest Maryland Challenge, a new state competition for start-ups. The awards were presented at the Brown Center at the Maryland Institute College of Art. To enter, companies had to have fewer than 25 employees and less than 1 million dollars in annual revenues. The winners must spend at least 51% of the prize money in Maryland.
The Baltimore ophthalmology company GrayBug was the Life Sciences winner. Graybug’s technology delivers drugs to the eye. Christy Wyskiel is COO.
The money is important; it will allow us to support at least a scientist. But I think more importantly, this is really validation and recognition for the hard work.
The contest is just one part of Invest Maryland, a broader program established in 2011. Thomas Dann is Managing Director of the Maryland Venture Fund, which invests directly in state companies and also awards money to venture capitalists.
We’ve already committed 25 million dollars to GroTech Ventures and New Atlantic Ventures and Kinetic Ventures and we’ve got several more in the queue.
The other big winners were software company Red Owl Analytics of Baltimore, and the LED lighting firm i-Lighting of Northeast.