Blu Venture Investors

Blu Venture Investors, LLC is a venture capital and private equity firm based in Vienna, Virginia, focusing on seed and early-stage investments across various technology sectors. Established in 2010, the firm targets companies involved in Web 2.0, Internet of Things (IoT), software, healthcare technology, digital media, and disruptive technologies in materials and biological sciences. It aims to support innovative solutions for federal defense, homeland security, and medical device sectors, particularly in cybersecurity and other technology areas. Typically, Blu Venture Investors invests between $50,000 and $3 million in each funding round and prefers to take majority stakes in its portfolio companies. The firm also seeks to engage actively by taking board seats and providing mentorship, leveraging the extensive experience of its investors, who are seasoned operating executives across various industries. The firm primarily focuses its investments in the mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., and North Carolina.

Eric Adler

Partner

Bikram Bakshi

Partner

Lily Bengfort

Partner

Keith Bozeman

Partner

Joseph Callanan

Partner

Michael Denning

Partner

Benjamin Ebenezer

Managing Principal

Matt Gittleman

Principal

Joshua Miller

Associate

Past deals in District of Columbia

Enquire AI

Series A in 2021
GlobalWonks is currently a tech-enabled marketplace evolving toward a comprehensive knowledge platform encompassing content automation and a SaaS application. Our team has extensive experience in international business, technology, and government, while our Advisory Council includes some of the world’s leading authorities in the same fields working with or among major consultancies including Ernst & Young, Eurasia Group, Control Risks, McKinsey & Co. in London, New York, and Washington. GlobalWonks’ value proposition is to provide high-quality global business and policy insights to clients quickly and cost-effectively in order to reduce the current industry wide pain of finding, engaging, and contracting top experts around the world at short notice. Our clients include Fortune 500 firms, ‘Big 4’ consultancies, hedge funds, and mid-sized financial institutions, among others, who connect with our organically grown network of over 1,500 experts in more than 100 countries across a variety of industries. This network is growing exponentially every month through our unique expert recruitment and retention framework. Our vision is to become the world’s premier knowledge management and acquisition platform combining human judgment, robotic process automation (RPA), and data analytics. It is our strong belief that this vision will bring with it the scope to fundamentally alter the future of work by providing top talent across the world with opportunities to consult with leading businesses, and do so on much improved terms.

ThreatQuotient

Venture Round in 2021
ThreatQuotient is a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that centrally manages and correlates unlimited external sources with all internal security and analytics solutions for contextual, operationalized intelligence in a single pane of glass. ThreatQ is also the first TIP to provide Indicator Nurturing, which goes beyond enrichment to help customers tailor indicators of compromise (IOCs) more specifically to their infrastructure. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by two former security operations analysts to provide organizations the ability to correlate with confidence.

ThreatQuotient

Debt Financing in 2021
ThreatQuotient is a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that centrally manages and correlates unlimited external sources with all internal security and analytics solutions for contextual, operationalized intelligence in a single pane of glass. ThreatQ is also the first TIP to provide Indicator Nurturing, which goes beyond enrichment to help customers tailor indicators of compromise (IOCs) more specifically to their infrastructure. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by two former security operations analysts to provide organizations the ability to correlate with confidence.

3CLogic

Series B in 2020
3CLogic Inc. develops cloud-based contact center solutions. Its platform enables to manage internal and external communication as well as customer engagements with interactive voice response (IVR) and multi-channel automatic call distribution (ACD) for call routing and a predictive dialer. It offers inbound, outbound, and blended solutions for finance, real estate, insurance, E-Commerce, healthcare, and education sectors. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Rockville, Maryland.

DeepSig

Series A in 2020
DeepSig is an early-stage startup that develops deep learning software to reinvent wireless communications. By replacing core wireless technology with deep learning, DeepSig makes communication systems faster, more cost-efficient, more secure, and able to excel in complex environments. It uses machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to learn optimized models directly from data rather than manually designing specialized algorithms, transforming wireless for 5G, IoT, and security.

Machfu

Series A in 2019
Machfu Inc. develops and maintains applications and infrastructure in industrial Internet of Things enabling data, analytics, and visualization on mobile tablets and computers. It offers MachFU, a smartphone for machines that helps industrial enterprises to communicate and connects industrial assets to legacy systems and cloud-based platforms. The company also provides Mach-IT that allows multiple pieces of equipment or hardware to communicate directly with an information processing system, such as a computer or backend system. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Rockville, Maryland.

Gallop.ai

Seed Round in 2018
Gallop is an AI assistant that saves employees time and money. We’ve been there. Planning a trip late at night after a long day. How much time should you leave for traffic? Should you risk connecting through O’Hare? Which airline will you get status on this year? Which hotel? Is there an option that gets you home in time to put the kids to bed? Wouldn’t it be great if someone could just figure out the best trip and plan it for you? That’s what Gallop does. We’re using AI to make planning business travel frictionless. The more you work with us, the more our software will learn how to build the perfect trip for you. Our software to gives everyone their own personal travel assistant. So, take a load off! And take your time back. We’ll get you on your way.

Threater

Seed Round in 2018
Bandura uses simple, innovative technology and best-in-class threat intelligence to secure your networks, data and users in real time - wherever they are. Whether it’s from data we provide out of the box, data from one of our Partner Integrations - or any other data source you have - we block attacks from up to 150 Million malicious IPs and domains in real-time, with no latency. At Bandura, we believe nothing scales like simplicity. We make blocking threats smart and simple - at scale - everywhere.

Urgently

Series B in 2017
Urgent.ly’s Roadside is a digital roadside assistance platform that features a roadside assistance industry to the benefit of global brands, roadside assistance professionals, and consumers. Its solution delivers the quickest, safest, and most innovative roadside assistance service, products and technology by combining location-based services, real-time data, AI, and machine-to-machine communication.

Machfu

Seed Round in 2017
Machfu Inc. develops and maintains applications and infrastructure in industrial Internet of Things enabling data, analytics, and visualization on mobile tablets and computers. It offers MachFU, a smartphone for machines that helps industrial enterprises to communicate and connects industrial assets to legacy systems and cloud-based platforms. The company also provides Mach-IT that allows multiple pieces of equipment or hardware to communicate directly with an information processing system, such as a computer or backend system. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Rockville, Maryland.

NewConnect

Venture Round in 2017
NewConnect LLC provides fixed wireless broadband services. The company offers high speed Internet access to various enterprise businesses, non-profit organizations, associations, and government agencies throughout the Washington, D.C. Metro market. Its services include dedicated Internet access, Ethernet private line, wireless fiber, and multi-ISP network. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia.

Bright Greens

Seed Round in 2017
Bright Greens, Inc. specializes in producing plant-based, frozen smoothies made from fruits and vegetables. The company offers a variety of flavors, including blueberry, mint green, peach and green, and pineapple. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, Bright Greens markets and sells its products through retail stores. The smoothies are designed to be convenient and require no blending, appealing to health-conscious consumers seeking easy, nutritious options.

PFP Cybersecurity

Series A in 2017
PFP is an agile (cloud-based or on-premise) platform that uses dynamic power behavior analysis to detect dangerous implant-based attacks in hardware, firmware, and configuration. PFP constantly monitors the power behavior of devices/IoT in data centers, critical infrastructure, and more; then, data is sent to the cloud where PFP detects malicious actors; dashboards display continuous monitoring and/or are alerted. Remediation occurs with or without human interaction. PFP then has continuous monitoring 24/7 which authenticates, detects, and remediates.

Dark Cubed

Seed Round in 2017
Dark Cubed brings security to the more than 99% of companies that do not have the resources to implement security today. Our SaaS solution augments existing firewalls to provide enterprise-grade security capabilities at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other solutions. We partner with MSPs and service providers to secure their customer base, increase revenue, and capture new customers.

Atomicorp

Seed Round in 2016
Atomicorp Ltd. develops security solutions for the protection and support of cloud, virtual, shared, and dedicated Web hosting environments. It offers Atomic Secured Linux, a security solution for Linux Web servers that provides solutions for site defacement and comment spams, Web application vulnerabilities, PCI-DSS and other regulatory compliance, rootkits and malware, denial of service attacks, XML attacks, SQL injections and cross site scripting, CSRF attacks, file and code injections, cookie and credential thefts, persistent threats, recursion attacks, data thefts and information leakages, malware uploads, and more. The company also offers Atomicorp GotRoot ModSecurity Rules, a Web server module that allows users to build a Web application firewall to protect Web applications; Atomicorp Nucleus Repository, a commercial archive that provides PHP 5.3 and related legacy support packages; and Atomicorp Repository, a Linux/MySQL/PHP archive. In addition, it offers a database of signatures, rules, and countermeasures against metacharacter attacks, remote code inclusion, XML schema attacks, buffer overflows, LDAP injection, dangling pointer attacks, and other application and Web based attacks. The company serves commercial enterprises and government agencies. It also sells its products online. The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Chantilly, Virginia. Atomicorp Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Prometheus Global, Inc.

ThreatQuotient

Series B in 2016
ThreatQuotient is a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that centrally manages and correlates unlimited external sources with all internal security and analytics solutions for contextual, operationalized intelligence in a single pane of glass. ThreatQ is also the first TIP to provide Indicator Nurturing, which goes beyond enrichment to help customers tailor indicators of compromise (IOCs) more specifically to their infrastructure. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by two former security operations analysts to provide organizations the ability to correlate with confidence.

Cybrary

Seed Round in 2016
Cybrary Inc. is an online platform that specializes in information technology and cybersecurity training, catering to a diverse audience that includes beginners, experienced professionals, and families globally. Founded in 2015 and based in College Park, Maryland, the company offers a wide range of training courses covering areas such as systems and network administration, cybersecurity fundamentals, and advanced topics like ethical hacking and penetration testing. Cybrary provides various resources, including instructional lectures, interactive labs, exam study guides, and case studies. It also offers enterprise training solutions, security awareness programs, and tools for educators to incorporate cybersecurity into their curricula. The platform fosters collaboration with an elite community of instructors and industry experts, enabling companies to contribute courses and recruit talent. Additionally, Cybrary's "Teams" product allows organizations to manage employee training, complete with practical labs and skill assessments, making it a comprehensive resource for both individual learners and enterprises seeking to enhance their workforce's skills.

Avizia

Series A in 2016
Avizia is a provider of telehealth and remote conferencing platform to deploy and power system-wide telehealth programs. It is delivering on the vision of collaborative care for patients by connecting medical experts across distance through innovative, leading-edge telemedicine solutions. Supported by Cisco technology, Avizia delivers telemedicine that is as powerful as it is easy to use. Its end-to-end solution includes telemedicine devices, workflow management software, store-and-forward capabilities with EHR integration, and a line of peripherals, such as digital stethoscopes and examination cameras. Whether medical professionals are performing remote medical consultations or teaching a new procedure, Avizia makes the experience feel as if everyone is present. Avizia uses Cisco TelePresence technology to enable HD, real-time video collaboration in hospitals amongst patients and professionals.

Vagabond Vending

Series A in 2016
Vagabond is a real-time and mobile-focused vending management software service. Their Insight telemetry hardware enables vending operators to have live views of all their machines. No more purchasing bulky vending-only handhelds; customers use their own Apple, Android and Kindle devices to manage the vending operation using Vagabond's OS-native mobile app. Their simple and intuitive mobile app and web interface are designed so self-described "non tech savvy" vending operators and drivers can immediately start using Vagabond

Trip Tribe

Seed Round in 2016
Trip Tribe offers a community-based platform that enables travelers to connect with each other and travel together for yoga and fitness retreats. It provides its services in Latin America, Europe, the United States, Canada, Asia, and Africa. The company enables individuals and businesses to promote accommodations and tours. Trip Tribe was founded by Dave & Meg Aidekman in 2013. It is based in Washington, District of Columbia, United States.

Interfolio

Series A in 2016
Interfolio is the provider of the most advanced workflow and shared governance technology for faculty and universities. Interfolio offers the first holistic Faculty Information System to support the full lifecycle of faculty work—from hiring to annual review, service, activity reporting, scholarly data collection and validation, and more. Interfolio defines and leads the market for faculty-first technology. As the higher education market transitions from legacy, on-premise technology to the cloud, Interfolio is quickly becoming a critical part of the enterprise IT stack by providing agile, scholar-centric SaaS solutions. Currently, Interfolio works with hundreds of institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Virginia, and Stanford.

PFP Cybersecurity

Series A in 2015
PFP is an agile (cloud-based or on-premise) platform that uses dynamic power behavior analysis to detect dangerous implant-based attacks in hardware, firmware, and configuration. PFP constantly monitors the power behavior of devices/IoT in data centers, critical infrastructure, and more; then, data is sent to the cloud where PFP detects malicious actors; dashboards display continuous monitoring and/or are alerted. Remediation occurs with or without human interaction. PFP then has continuous monitoring 24/7 which authenticates, detects, and remediates.

ThreatQuotient

Series A in 2015
ThreatQuotient is a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that centrally manages and correlates unlimited external sources with all internal security and analytics solutions for contextual, operationalized intelligence in a single pane of glass. ThreatQ is also the first TIP to provide Indicator Nurturing, which goes beyond enrichment to help customers tailor indicators of compromise (IOCs) more specifically to their infrastructure. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by two former security operations analysts to provide organizations the ability to correlate with confidence.

Urgently

Series A in 2015
Urgent.ly’s Roadside is a digital roadside assistance platform that features a roadside assistance industry to the benefit of global brands, roadside assistance professionals, and consumers. Its solution delivers the quickest, safest, and most innovative roadside assistance service, products and technology by combining location-based services, real-time data, AI, and machine-to-machine communication.

ThreatQuotient

Seed Round in 2015
ThreatQuotient is a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that centrally manages and correlates unlimited external sources with all internal security and analytics solutions for contextual, operationalized intelligence in a single pane of glass. ThreatQ is also the first TIP to provide Indicator Nurturing, which goes beyond enrichment to help customers tailor indicators of compromise (IOCs) more specifically to their infrastructure. Headquartered in Northern Virginia, ThreatQuotient was founded in 2013 by two former security operations analysts to provide organizations the ability to correlate with confidence.

Avizia

Convertible Note in 2015
Avizia is a provider of telehealth and remote conferencing platform to deploy and power system-wide telehealth programs. It is delivering on the vision of collaborative care for patients by connecting medical experts across distance through innovative, leading-edge telemedicine solutions. Supported by Cisco technology, Avizia delivers telemedicine that is as powerful as it is easy to use. Its end-to-end solution includes telemedicine devices, workflow management software, store-and-forward capabilities with EHR integration, and a line of peripherals, such as digital stethoscopes and examination cameras. Whether medical professionals are performing remote medical consultations or teaching a new procedure, Avizia makes the experience feel as if everyone is present. Avizia uses Cisco TelePresence technology to enable HD, real-time video collaboration in hospitals amongst patients and professionals.

Trip Tribe

Seed Round in 2014
Trip Tribe offers a community-based platform that enables travelers to connect with each other and travel together for yoga and fitness retreats. It provides its services in Latin America, Europe, the United States, Canada, Asia, and Africa. The company enables individuals and businesses to promote accommodations and tours. Trip Tribe was founded by Dave & Meg Aidekman in 2013. It is based in Washington, District of Columbia, United States.

Urgently

Convertible Note in 2014
Urgent.ly’s Roadside is a digital roadside assistance platform that features a roadside assistance industry to the benefit of global brands, roadside assistance professionals, and consumers. Its solution delivers the quickest, safest, and most innovative roadside assistance service, products and technology by combining location-based services, real-time data, AI, and machine-to-machine communication.

Avizia

Seed Round in 2014
Avizia is a provider of telehealth and remote conferencing platform to deploy and power system-wide telehealth programs. It is delivering on the vision of collaborative care for patients by connecting medical experts across distance through innovative, leading-edge telemedicine solutions. Supported by Cisco technology, Avizia delivers telemedicine that is as powerful as it is easy to use. Its end-to-end solution includes telemedicine devices, workflow management software, store-and-forward capabilities with EHR integration, and a line of peripherals, such as digital stethoscopes and examination cameras. Whether medical professionals are performing remote medical consultations or teaching a new procedure, Avizia makes the experience feel as if everyone is present. Avizia uses Cisco TelePresence technology to enable HD, real-time video collaboration in hospitals amongst patients and professionals.

ID.me

Series A in 2014
The mission of ID.me is to make the world a more trusted place by enabling transparent interactions between people and organizations. ID.me is a digital identity network that empowers consumers to prove their identity via a digital medium in contexts where it would benefit the consumer to be known. For relying parties, ID.me provides a single API endpoint through which partners can verify the identity of users attempting to access a website or to unlock an exclusive benefit. The United States Department of Commerce selected ID.me as one of the top five identity companies in America in 2013 and awarded the company a $2.8M grant to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). ID.me was a Finalist for Wall Street Journal Startup of the Year in 2013. Entrepreneur Magazine selected ID.me as one of 100 Brilliant Companies for 2014 in their June 2014 edition. Key customers include SeaWorld, Overstock.com, Under Armour, Dell, Sears Holding Corporation, and 129 additional retailers and brands.

3CLogic

Series B in 2014
3CLogic Inc. develops cloud-based contact center solutions. Its platform enables to manage internal and external communication as well as customer engagements with interactive voice response (IVR) and multi-channel automatic call distribution (ACD) for call routing and a predictive dialer. It offers inbound, outbound, and blended solutions for finance, real estate, insurance, E-Commerce, healthcare, and education sectors. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Rockville, Maryland.

LATISTA

Venture Round in 2013
LATISTA is a developer of mobile-enabled technology focused on improving collaboration in the construction industry. The company offers a mobile application that streamlines construction quality control and field management processes. This software facilitates communication between field teams and office personnel, addressing critical workflows such as quality management, punch lists, safety, and electronic commissioning. By providing tools for effective document management and managing project-specific plans and drawings, LATISTA aims to reduce costly rework, delays, and paperwork, ultimately enhancing the efficiency of construction projects.

Interfolio

Seed Round in 2013
Interfolio is the provider of the most advanced workflow and shared governance technology for faculty and universities. Interfolio offers the first holistic Faculty Information System to support the full lifecycle of faculty work—from hiring to annual review, service, activity reporting, scholarly data collection and validation, and more. Interfolio defines and leads the market for faculty-first technology. As the higher education market transitions from legacy, on-premise technology to the cloud, Interfolio is quickly becoming a critical part of the enterprise IT stack by providing agile, scholar-centric SaaS solutions. Currently, Interfolio works with hundreds of institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Virginia, and Stanford.

ID.me

Convertible Note in 2013
The mission of ID.me is to make the world a more trusted place by enabling transparent interactions between people and organizations. ID.me is a digital identity network that empowers consumers to prove their identity via a digital medium in contexts where it would benefit the consumer to be known. For relying parties, ID.me provides a single API endpoint through which partners can verify the identity of users attempting to access a website or to unlock an exclusive benefit. The United States Department of Commerce selected ID.me as one of the top five identity companies in America in 2013 and awarded the company a $2.8M grant to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). ID.me was a Finalist for Wall Street Journal Startup of the Year in 2013. Entrepreneur Magazine selected ID.me as one of 100 Brilliant Companies for 2014 in their June 2014 edition. Key customers include SeaWorld, Overstock.com, Under Armour, Dell, Sears Holding Corporation, and 129 additional retailers and brands.

ID.me

Venture Round in 2012
The mission of ID.me is to make the world a more trusted place by enabling transparent interactions between people and organizations. ID.me is a digital identity network that empowers consumers to prove their identity via a digital medium in contexts where it would benefit the consumer to be known. For relying parties, ID.me provides a single API endpoint through which partners can verify the identity of users attempting to access a website or to unlock an exclusive benefit. The United States Department of Commerce selected ID.me as one of the top five identity companies in America in 2013 and awarded the company a $2.8M grant to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). ID.me was a Finalist for Wall Street Journal Startup of the Year in 2013. Entrepreneur Magazine selected ID.me as one of 100 Brilliant Companies for 2014 in their June 2014 edition. Key customers include SeaWorld, Overstock.com, Under Armour, Dell, Sears Holding Corporation, and 129 additional retailers and brands.

TroopSwap

Seed Round in 2012
Daily Deals Exclusively For The Military Community. Because A Life Of Service Should Have Its Perks! Founded by veterans, TroopSwap.com provides a channel for business to give back to the military community. We only employ military spouses and veterans for our local community outreach. 10% of profits are donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. Sign up today at http://www.troopswap.com

ID.me

Series A in 2011
The mission of ID.me is to make the world a more trusted place by enabling transparent interactions between people and organizations. ID.me is a digital identity network that empowers consumers to prove their identity via a digital medium in contexts where it would benefit the consumer to be known. For relying parties, ID.me provides a single API endpoint through which partners can verify the identity of users attempting to access a website or to unlock an exclusive benefit. The United States Department of Commerce selected ID.me as one of the top five identity companies in America in 2013 and awarded the company a $2.8M grant to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). ID.me was a Finalist for Wall Street Journal Startup of the Year in 2013. Entrepreneur Magazine selected ID.me as one of 100 Brilliant Companies for 2014 in their June 2014 edition. Key customers include SeaWorld, Overstock.com, Under Armour, Dell, Sears Holding Corporation, and 129 additional retailers and brands.

LATISTA

Series A in 2011
LATISTA is a developer of mobile-enabled technology focused on improving collaboration in the construction industry. The company offers a mobile application that streamlines construction quality control and field management processes. This software facilitates communication between field teams and office personnel, addressing critical workflows such as quality management, punch lists, safety, and electronic commissioning. By providing tools for effective document management and managing project-specific plans and drawings, LATISTA aims to reduce costly rework, delays, and paperwork, ultimately enhancing the efficiency of construction projects.