Montana Company Wins Arlington Startup Competition

Oppleo Security, a Bozeman, Montana-based company working on cybersecurity solutions, has won the Startup Arlington competition and will be moving to town with three months of free living and office space.

The company, led by Roderick Flores and Bri Rolston, offers a cloud-based software called Sikernes that helps defend against cyber attacks.

Oppleo Security was selected from a pool of 50 applicants, said competition organizer Arlington Economic Development. The selection was based on the company’s viability, business plan and how it would benefit from being in the county.

The company fits in with Arlington’s startup landscape because of its focus on cybersecurity, said AED spokesman Darren Stauffer.

“Oppleo Security is the type of company that we believe can benefit from being located in Arlington given their customer base and target market. These are the types of companies we are actively working to bring to Arlington,” Stuaffer said in a statement. “Being in our region, which is the epicenter of the cyber security space, should provide a lot of the resources to allow Oppleo to scale.”

The company will be given office space from Carr Workspaces and a room at the Residence Inn in Rosslyn, as well as free access to Capital Bikeshare and Metro and legal advice from Arlington Law Group.

Arlington’s location provides the software company access to a large talent pool and federal resources it would not be able to reach otherwise, Flores said, adding that he wants to hire at least seven employees in Arlington with the next year.

“It is an incredible honor and opportunity to be selected from such a large pool of amazing companies. Arlington is an excellent location for us to scale our business,” Flores said in a statement. “Not only is it in the heart of the world’s premier cybersecurity region, but it affords us ready access to many excellent resources such as potential partners, research teams, mentors and a large talent pool.”

Oppleo Security has a large customer base in the D.C. area and moving to Arlington will allow the company to win more customers, he said.

“The customer base for cybersecurity, ranging from the government to the private sector, is without limits and cannot be equaled anywhere else in the country,” Flores said.