WOW! Just have to put this in. Infosci is a startup (or endup?) founded by real "experienced" guys whose youngest innovator is........75. Cool. Seems they have been in the cybersecurity world for a while and know EVERYTHING and more. So they are putting that knowledge to work on forming Infosci. THIS is a really great read. Oh hey guys, on the exit strategy, forget the VC and acquisition road. Do an ICO. Its all the rage.
(Bill Taylor/CEO)
"On paper, Infosci looks like a lot of startups whose founders travel Sand Hill Road in search of venture capital. It has the dropout, the ex-CIA guy, the experienced startup seller—and they say they have a way to protect against a key type of cyberattack. But when the three arrive for meetings with potential investors, they aren’t wearing hoodies and flip-flops. The main founders are all 75 to 80, and they’re motivated sellers.
“If we were all 40 years old, we’d be going out, raising a couple million dollars, building a company, taking on RSA,” says John Ellingson, the startup seller, referring to the well-known encryption system. “Since the youngest of us is 75, we have to have a different exit plan.
John Kittelberger, 75, is the dropout (high school). He’s also the businessman, the former owner of a plumbing business in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Phil Dean, 80, spent 30 years handling technical operations at the CIA, was one of the original members of the agency’s Counterterrorism Center, and likes to travel by unicycle. Ellingson, also 75, is a lawyer specializing in identity theft who two decades ago cashed in on a fraud detection system he’d invented. “We call ourselves the plumber, the spy, and the nerd,” Ellingson says. Company meetings are often held at various Panera Bread Co. franchises.
The Infosci founders have been working on a software design they say would protect against hacks such as the one that breached the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2014. That attack exposed the personal information of 22.1 million Americans, including identifying information such as Social Security numbers and background-check files on people who’d done business with or worked for the government. Ellingson says he and Dean numbered among those who had personal data stolen...." Read Full Story at Bloomberg