Two Bethesda Tech Businesses Receive Additional $700,000 from State

One specializes in assessing brain injuries, the other develops mobile device security tools.

August 6, 2014 8:53 a.m.

Two Bethesda-based businesses have been so successful that the Maryland Venture Fund is doubling down on its initial investments in them.

The state fund announced Tuesday that it is investing an additional $400,000 in KoolSpan, which creates security applications to protect data and voice communications on mobile phones, and $300,000 more in BrainScope, which is developing portable tools to quickly assess brain injuries.

This brings the total state investment in the companies up to $700,000 for KoolSpan and $900,000 for BrainScope.

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KoolSpan CEO Gregg Smith said in a statement that he plans to use the money to double the number of company employees from 45 to 100 by the end of the year.

“To put that number in perspective, just two years ago we had eight employees,” Smith said.

The company’s TrustChip, which is designed around a microSD chip, provides data encryption for up to 2 gigabytes of memory and can be controlled remotely, according to the company’s website. The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, which operates the Maryland Venture Fund, said the chip powers AT&T’s encryption platform and Samsung’s S1 mobile and voice security.

BrainScope is involved in the hot-button issue of head injuries. The company’s goal is to develop a hand-held, portable and easy-to-use tool to quickly assess the seriousness of brain injuries. It plans to do this by creating a device that measures electrical signals in the brain and cross-references that information with an algorithm based on research of electrical levels in the brain at the time of a head injury. The company is currently focused on providing a tool for military settings, but future uses include sports and emergency medicine, according to the company’s website.

“The continued investment from the State of Maryland over the past three years, and now most recently, has been instrumental in helping us develop point of care medical devices to assess traumatic brain injury, a vital public health neadd,” Michael Singer, president and CEO of BrainScope, said in a statement.

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The company has received nearly $12 million in government contracts to fund its work, according to the state’s economic development department.

BrainScope is located at 4350 East West Highway; KoolSpan is headquartered at 7735 Old Georgetown Road.

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