TEDCO awards 45 grants to Maryland businesses hit hardest by the pandemic

TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced on July 19 that its Rural and Underserved Business Recovery from Impact of COVID-19 (RUBRIC) program has awarded grants to 45 Maryland companies. RUBRIC was created as an economic relief initiative designed to benefit socially and economically disadvantaged and rural early-stage technology-based businesses hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our administration is committed to growing the state’s economy, which included providing targeted emergency economic relief funding for Maryland businesses negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Governor Larry Hogan.

Funding for the RUBRIC program was announced in December 2020 as part of Governor Hogan’s state emergency economic relief package, which included $5 million to help socially and economically disadvantaged companies or companies in rural areas negatively affected by COVID-19.

“The RUBRIC program focused on companies that had the highest barriers to traditional financing, but are still expected to scale to the next phase of fundraising,” said TEDCO’s CEO and executive director, Troy LeMaile-Stovall. “It was important for us to target companies that were considered socially or economically disadvantaged as well as those in the rural areas of Maryland that were hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis.”

“The applications for the RUBRIC program showcased just how amazing the entrepreneurial community is within the state of Maryland,” said Sukari Brown, RUBRIC program manager, TEDCO. “I was impressed by the kinds of problems these companies were identifying and the innovative solutions they developed. It was hard to choose at times, given the quality of all of the applications we received, but that is an amazing indicator of the diverse pipeline in the area. I am thrilled to be a part of such an amazing effort to provide funding to companies led by socially/economically disadvantaged and rural founders in order to alleviate some of the negative impacts due to COVID-19. I believe we have a group of RUBRIC awardees who will thrive and be a strong signal that Maryland is a great incubator for early-stage tech companies.”

Funds for the RUBRIC program have been fully deployed and the program will no longer be accepting applications.

Learn more and see the full list of awardees: https://www.tedcomd.com/news-events/press-releases/2021/tedco-awards-45-...