San Antonio’s technology community is growing again.
Fresh off the heels of last week’s announcement of a new system of tech careers high schools set to open next year, tech partners today announced a new incubator aimed at shooting San Antonio to the top of the list of the nation’s leaders in cybersecurity technology and products.
Much like a mentorship program, the Build Sec Foundry is designed to do what its name suggests: build a foundation of security startup companies through collaboration and support from existing San Antonio tech companies, from the Austin Technology Incubator and even from the 24th Air Force Cybercommand.
That’s where Chris Gerritz came from before he started info cyte at Geekdom. He got startup help through a San Antonio boot camp that mentors retiring military intelligence experts.
"The boot camp gave us the skill set initially to do this, because leaving the military after 10 years and going straight into a company and a commercial organization is a big step. Having the skill set, having the support from that initial boot camp is great. An incubator like this is going to make it even better and help us take it to a national and an international level."
Geekdom CEO Lorenzo Gomez says, where Geekdom started with a handful of techies in 2011, just five years later he now sees perhaps 400 people every day at the Rand Building, where startups gather to work and get help.
"This cybersecurity incubator is really where companies can go and get mentorship, they can get pricing help, they can meet with people who have created companies before, bought and sold companies before, and really help them along the entrepreneurship journey."
Gomez says the journey can be catastrophic without help. Build Sec Foundry's job is to help companies grow and become the one in ten that can help place San Antonio on the national map for cybersecurity products and services.
Rackspace founder Graham Weston’s 80-20 Foundation donated $600,000 to kick off the startup incubator. Gomez says, just like Rackspace, one of the startups will get very big, very fast with Build Sec’s help and will become an international force in cybersecurity products and services.
"And they're going to need marketers and they're going to need lawyers and they're going to need customer service leaders. And so it's going to be a magnet that brings in all kinds of talent, not just cyber guys. And so we'll be able to include so many other parts of our city as one of these companies grows."
