A small Boulder cybersecurity firm that is looking at a major expansion that could bring nearly 500 jobs to Boulder County received approval Thursday morning for a $2.42 million state tax incentive. rice field.
RADICL Defense is a Boulder startup looking to expand in Colorado or relocate to Orlando, Florida. That’s because it’s winning more contracts to help small businesses step up their cybersecurity efforts.
To keep the company going, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved a $2.42 million job expansion incentive tax credit for Project Disco, the codename given to RADICL. In return, the company, which currently has eight employees, has agreed to create up to 491 net new jobs over the next eight years at an average annual income of $126,812, representing 147% of the average Boulder County income. Did.
Additional jobs include engineers, sales and marketing staff, product designers, cyber and security analysts, and finance roles.
“I spent a lot of time in Florida in my previous life and was seriously considering moving our headquarters there,” Radicl COO David Graff told the committee.
Graff co-founded the company in 2022 with brothers Chris and Matt Petersen. While it may seem aggressive to grow the workforce from his eight to nearly 500 in such a short period of time, Radicl CEO Chris Petersen said he previously worked at a Boulder company called LogRhythm. I’m doing it to
Chris Petersen and experimental physicist Phil Villella had the idea for a cybersecurity company called Security Conscious in 2002 during a camping trip near Steamboat Springs. , which has since added offices in the UK and Singapore. In 2018, private his equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired his LogRhythm and moved it to Broomfield last year.
In a post on the RADICL website, Chris Petersen said he was furious when he learned about the cyber attack on SolarWinds by hackers affiliated with the Russian intelligence service. This information technology company injected malicious code into one of his software updates, initially estimated to reach up to 18,000 customers. Hackers were able to launch ransomware on fewer than 100 companies.
“Our mission is to specifically protect businesses that are being actively targeted by nation-state threats. Because innovative companies desperately need better solutions that truly protect their most important secrets, we know our mission is challenging. We know it will require significant innovation,” writes Petersen.
EDC also passed approval of $150,000 from the state’s Strategic Fund and initiated the $2.5 million fundraiser needed to activate the $2.5 million fundraiser. The event will be held April 26-28 at the Colorado Convention Center and other downtown locations and is expected to draw 2,500 qualified delegates and thousands of attendees.
The first event invited 250 civic leaders from the United States, 250 civic leaders from other parts of the Americas, and hundreds more from non-profit and business representatives, as well as a youth conference. will also be held. The US State Department has put in $1 million for him, but he needs to raise another $2.5 million from other sources, much of it local.
The Colorado Tourism Board is expected to allocate $100,000, Amazon has pledged a similar amount, and Walmart is also expected to contribute significantly. However, commissioner Chris Franz questioned why the fundraiser had started so late when he was only four months away from the event.
Get more business news by signing up for the Economy Now newsletter.
