UMBC cyber incubator expansion attracts regional entrepreneurs

Executive director Ellen Hemmerly leading the cyber charge at Baltimore County tech park

Joanna Sullivan

Editor-in-Chief- Baltimore Business Journal

How can you tell Maryland is becoming a hotbed for cyber security business?

Ellen J. Hemmerly said it’s obvious from the companies looking into University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s technology incubator.

“We’re attracting not only local and regional entrepreneurs,” Hemmerly said. “We’re getting more and more inquiries and tenants from out of state.”

Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park, is busy overseeing a 3,500-square-foot expansion of the CyberHive incubator. The $300,000 addition gets christened on Sept. 27, the same day the incubator celebrates three graduates of its Cync program, AccelerEyes, Five Directions and Oculis Labs. The Cync program is a partnership between UMBC and Northrop Grumman Corp.

The 10,000-square-foot CyberHive currently has 26 companies that lease dedicated space. The addition will enable another five companies that can lease space and about 20 more affiliate companies that can use shared space, Hemmerly said. The new space includes conference rooms, a coffee lounge, a public co-working space and five dedicated incubator lab spaces.

She said many incubator companies wanted space to meet and greet UMBC students and professors.

“We wanted to have a place where it was conducive to those kinds of introductions so they can do more active collaboration,” Hemmerly said.

Tenants pay about $750 a month for dedicated space. Affiliates pay about $325 a month. Included in the price — free coffee, water and maybe some snacks.

“We’re going to bring more to the table for affiliates,” she said.