‘Fuel’ brings cybersecurity startups to Northwest Arkansas
Summary
While sorting through applications for the upcoming cybersecurity cohort of Startup Junkies Fuel Accelerator program, Sajan Gautam had some explaining to do for founders unfamiliar with the region.We had to educate them quite a bit about Northwest Arkansas, he said. We start by discussing Walmart, Tyson Foods, and the Waltons, and then the conversation goes from there.Gautam is the entrepreneur-in-residence who will lead Fuels 10-week cybersecurity program. Darian Harris, Fuels director, said they are from Arkansas, Texas, California, Idaho, Argentina, Italy, Egypt and Israel.Gautam is a former cybersecurity executive who has become an adviser and investor in Bentonville. It is organized in partnership with Catapult Consulting, led by Tom Douglass, former director of emerging technology at Walmart Inc., and with programming support from GrowthX, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund.The program offers hands-on education, workshops and support to guide companies toward becoming enterprise-ready. Bastazo has also started raising a $2.5 million seed round and just landed its first venture capital investor from Washington, D.C.Weve bootstrapped the entire way with government contracts and grants, Iglesias said.