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Shenandoah County takes long view on economic development

Shenandoah County hopes a $100,000 study is an early step toward welcoming new businesses and jobs.

“We know that it takes time to develop property,” Jenna French, the county’s director of tourism and economic , says. “We are planning for the future.”

The county hired the Timmons Group to identify possible sites for business development. The Richmond-based engineering and design company is working to complete a report by this fall that will list potential properties and possible types of businesses, as well as estimates of return on the county’s investment in infrastructure and other development costs.

The decision to look for sites for growth was spurred by the fact that just 1% of is zoned for industrial use, according to French. The county is running out of already-identified development sites.

Shenandoah County and its Authority split the cost of the study, which is groundwork for development that may not occur for years.

“At this point, it’s exploratory,” Jay Winkfield, chair of the Shenandoah County Economic Development Authority, says.

Beverly Butterfield, another member of the authority, calls the study “a framework that will let us set some priorities.”

Recent announcements included February’s news that Serioplast, an Italian plastics packaging maker, plans to invest $25.7 million and create 45 jobs in Mount Jackson. AD Engineering, a manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning components, announced in November a $1.2 million expansion, also in Mount Jackson, that will create 25 jobs. Early last year, Logan Foods bought in Strasburg for a plant that the company said would have about 30 workers when it is built in a few years.

Joe Hines, who leads the Timmons Group’s economic development practice, explains that the study will use the company’s Analytical Data Driven Site Selection tool. It combines GIS data with infrastructure availability, environmental factors, and local input.

Timmons has conducted similar studies for more than 200 localities in the Southeast, according to Hines. Most clients look for sites of at least 100 acres, he wrote in an email.

It’s too early to know what the authority’s next steps will be after the Timmons report is completed, according to Winkfield.

“This is more of an opportunity to see what could be here,” Winkfield says. “Where that will lead us, I’m not sure.”

 

Health care systems are in their building era

At some medical centers around Virginia, workers donning hard hats are nearly as prevalent this year as medical staff wearing scrubs.

From smaller-scale renovations to new hospitals with billion-dollar price tags, systems are undertaking a wide range of projects to respond to growing (and aging) populations and expand services at hospital campuses, among other goals.

Such projects show how health care systems can supplement services or augment physical spaces to adapt to changing patient needs, says Julian Walker, vice president of communications for the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association. “They’re reflective of hospital systems that are attentive of, and attuned to, the specific and unique needs of the communities they serve.”

At the forefront of the state’s health care projects are Inova Health System’s two new hospitals in Northern Virginia, projected to cost $2 billion and span more than 1.4 million square feet. The system broke ground in 2024 on its new Alexandria and Springfield hospitals, which are slated to be complete in 2028.

Inova Franconia-Springfield will include 110 beds and offer emergency care, surgery services and other inpatient treatment, but Inova Alexandria is the higher profile project. It’s located at the site of the former Landmark Mall and replaces the old Alexandria Hospital with a 192-bed facility that will include a cancer center and medical office building.

Meanwhile, in , Health is building a new acute care hospital with 42 beds that is scheduled to be completed in summer 2026.

Here are some other major projects on the horizon for Virginia’s health systems:

Growing statewide

Last year, VHC Health’s board approved a strategic capital investment plan of roughly $500 million over the next five years to improve and enhance the Northern Virginia health system, says Christopher T. Lane, VHC’s president and CEO. In addition to projects at the main hospital campus in , the fast-growing provider is expanding into .

“We’re not growing for the sake of growing; we’re growing to provide great options for our community to receive great care right where they live and where they work,” Lane says.

In Falls Church, a 14,000-square-foot combined freestanding emergency department and urgent care center will open in late 2026, and VHC is negotiating with Arlington County to build a freestanding behavioral health hospital with inpatient rehab.

Construction began in January at VHC’s offices in Alexandria and McLean, as well as the addition of a third floor in Shirlington that started in November 2024.

Meanwhile, at VHC’s main campus, the health system is expanding its emergency department services by about 40%, increasing its comprehensive psychiatric emergency program by 50%, growing the ICU from 28 beds to 45 beds, and renovating its labor and delivery department to accommodate 50% more patients.

Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic conducts community assessments every three years, and transportation and access to care are always top priorities, says Carl Cline, vice president and administrator of Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital in Rocky Mount.

Carilion has found success renovating and modernizing its 1952 building in Rocky Mount, including a $15 million project completed last year that doubled capacity for operating room services. “That’s where the community knows the hospital is and it’s very important to keep the hospital in the center of town,” Cline says.

A renovation project will begin this spring to create a pediatric clinic in Rocky Mount with three full-time pediatricians and a rotating group of specialists. It’s scheduled to be completed by fall.

Also, in Roanoke, construction is underway for the $100 million Carilion Taubman Cancer Center that will expand oncology services and bring advanced , clinical trials and more specialists to the location. The center is expected to open in 2027.

Nashville-based HCA Healthcare has several projects at various stages that will broaden its network in Virginia. The overarching theme is expanding access to care in growing communities, says Shaila Menees, chief officer in the HCA Healthcare Capital Division in Richmond.

“How do we optimize, ensuring that folks that are already within our network can stay within our network for ease of care and continuity of care, which is critical,” Menees says.

HCA didn’t win approval for a medical center in Ashland, but it’s building an 18,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center with two operating rooms there. The facility could open by late 2026.

Menees says HCA is exploring additional opportunities to expand in Hanover and Chesterfield, too.

Meanwhile, the health system plans to build more freestanding emergency departments, which typically have about 12 beds each. Construction will likely begin this year for two locations in the Richmond area and one in Leesburg, with all three opening sometime in 2026. HCA is also in the early stages of finalizing plans for freestanding emergency rooms in the Stafford and Chantilly areas.

In Central Virginia and , Bon Secours Mercy Health has two major projects underway to bring more medical care to patients in fast-growing areas of Virginia.

The Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View in Suffolk will expand to serve about 75,000 patients annually, which is important since the city’s population has doubled since 1990, says Andy Spicknall, the center’s president.

The three-story, 100,000-square-foot addition is scheduled to open in May with 18 private inpatient rooms and four operating rooms. The hospital is designed to support additional beds in the future.

“What has driven us to open this facility is the need to provide closer hospital care to this growing population,” Spicknall says.

Bon Secours also won approval for a freestanding 10-bed emergency department in Ashland that could relieve the “super busy” ER at Memorial Regional Medical Center in Mechanicsville, adds John Emery, president of that center and Bon Secours Rappahannock General Hospital.

Construction is underway, and the facility is set to open by January 2026.

The new emergency department, which will have outpatient imaging services, could save 10 to 15 minutes when EMS transports patients from nearby Caroline County. “That’s really a huge, huge thing,” Emery says.

Reducing the time it takes patients to access care during a medical emergency is likewise a goal for Riverside Health’s new hospital under construction in Isle of Wight County. Designated as a medically underserved area, the closest medical care for many residents is currently 30-plus minutes away, says Jessica Macalino, president of Riverside Smithfield Hospital.

While construction began in 2023, the idea dates back to 2008 when Riverside Health bought in Smithfield. The need only increased with postpandemic population growth in Isle of Wight, and Macalino says tremendous community support helped make the new hospital possible. “We are very proud to be the provider expanding health care in this area that’s much needed.”

The three-story, 200,000-square-foot hospital will feature an emergency department, diagnostic imaging services, and 50 inpatient beds. It’s scheduled to open in early 2026.

On the same campus, construction is underway on a 20,000-square-foot medical office building with 40 exam rooms and physical therapy services. That is set to open around September.

In addition to projects in Charlottesville, UVA Health is undertaking a wide range of projects intended to better serve a “pretty broad swath” of Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, says Eric Swensen, public information officer. Such plans will bring specialty care services to places like Culpeper, Warrenton, Manassas, Gainesville, Waynesboro and Staunton.

“We’re just seeing a demand for care that continues to grow, and we’re expanding to meet that need,” Swensen says.

An expansion to the UVA University Hospital’s south tower will add about 100 new beds, with dedicated floors for cancer care and NICU. It’s scheduled to be completed by 2028. Also in Charlottesville, the health system is building a 40,000-square-foot pharmacy center to streamline services and offer home delivery. It’s slated for 2026.

 

Wealth advisers reveal ways to avoid bumps

Financial markets have been remarkably resilient this year, with various stock indexes notching new record highs, even as a dizzying number of headlines from Washington, D.C., seem poised to whipsaw investors.

Uncertainty persists about how the — and, by virtue, financial markets — will fare, given President Donald Trump’s moves to aggressively slash federal spending, impose tariffs on key trade partners and lay off thousands of government employees, among other measures. In mid-March, with Wall Street investors signaling alarm over a potential recession, the Index fell 10% below the record level set in February.

After two consecutive years of 20% and higher gains for this benchmark, the prospect of more muted returns is a hot topic for money managers, along with how to navigate what could be a bumpy road ahead.

“Diversification is critical right now; it’s very, very important over the long-term, but especially over periods of market uncertainty,” explains Sarah Cammiso, managing director of Cammiso, Wilson and Associates of Merrill Lynch , based in Vienna.

While touting the benefits of diversification and asset allocation may seem cliché, a judicious approach to investment decisions is even more important now, says Joe Montgomery, managing director of at The Optimal Service Group of Wells Fargo Advisors in Williamsburg.

“You need to have a bit more selectivity now than the past couple years.”

How should one go about selecting investments this year? Here are some strategies to consider from four Virginia-based advisers:

A changing regime

While investors are making sense of new leadership in D.C., there’s also been a shakeup in the .

A small group of , dubbed the Magnificent Seven, did much of the heavy lifting for the U.S. stock market in recent years. At the end of 2024, these stocks — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — accounted for 35% of the S&P 500. Their dominance of this index has already eased up this year, which is good news for investors.

So much money poured into a relatively small number of stocks that became overvalued while a lot of other areas of the market went ignored and are now undervalued, explains Tim Call, the president and chief investment officer of Capital Management Corp., based in Glen Allen. Small-cap stocks are “extremely attractive,” followed by mid-caps. “A lot of those stocks are on sale right now.”

Where has Call’s team gone bargain hunting? They’ve invested in shares of regional TV broadcasters, some of which are “exceptionally” undervalued even though they have attractive growth prospects, he says. Then there are the companies that benefit from the artificial intelligence boom, if somewhat indirectly, such as those involved in natural gas production and pipelines or makers of air conditioning units that are crucial for the AI server farms, he adds.

Many companies are offering compelling cash flow, dividend, and growth prospects for investors willing to do the legwork to find them, Call says. “We like getting the best of all worlds when we buy a company, so we’re very excited about the opportunities we see.”

Another appeal to small-cap stocks is related to the prospect of new tariffs on imports from key trade partners, says Jamie Cox, managing partner of Harris Financial Group, based in Chesterfield County. “If interest rates stay stable, which they’re likely to do, small-caps are going to perform really well in this environment because they’re mostly domestic-focused.”

More broadly, investors worried that tariffs will be inflationary can seek out strategic investment opportunities if that materializes, Cox says. Companies in the housing and sectors could be a good place to “hide away,” while domestic automakers are a potential refuge from the potential fallout from tariffs, especially because the auto industry is “ground zero for all of these tariff negotiations,” he adds.

As of early March, President Trump has twice announced and then paused tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products, creating stock market fluctuations.

Like Call, Cox says investors can find some interesting and perhaps unexpected ways to benefit from AI-related productivity gains that could be “massive.” Investors might consider buying shares of retailers that are finding ways to leverage AI to improve the customer experience, he advises, while shares of pharmaceutical companies and other providers are a more obvious play.

Still banking on bonds

Another major dynamic in financial markets this year is the fact that the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee has signaled it will likely ease up on its rate-cutting strategy. Whereas market participants were expecting central bank policymakers to cut the benchmark federal funds rate four times in 2025, the consensus as of early March was just two rate cuts.

Four rate cuts would have boosted the bond market, and now these assets won’t deliver the growth many investors were expecting, Cammiso says. “But just because that’s no longer true doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t hold bonds.”

Rather, the bond market has historically offered a refuge for investors during periods of volatility in the stock market. And while the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury has moved mostly lower this year, it remains well above a long-term average.

Just as there are likely to be opportunities to buy stocks when volatility causes prices to fall, investors should have a similar mindset about putting cash to work in the bond market, Cammiso advises. “We could actually see some opportunities if we see continued volatility because of the uncertainty in the market.”

Investors worried about volatility in the stock and bond markets today have a significant advantage to those who suffered through market crashes in decades past: An even broader array of alternative assets that might provide a valuable hedge.

The democratization of these assets is a big deal, Montgomery says, but sometimes not fully appreciated. “I’m struck by the fact that most people really are not taking advantage of all the opportunities that are out there.”

Montgomery recommends a “gumbo theory” for adding alternative assets to your portfolio. What really makes for a good gumbo aren’t just the proteins, he says, but also the seasonings — and an allocation of up to 20% of your portfolio to alternative assets could be a good recipe during periods of volatility.

Even so, it’s important to be mindful of how various assets move in lockstep, what’s known as correlation, so you achieve diversification rather than what Montgomery jokingly refers to as “worsification.”

Likewise, Cammiso says it’s more accessible to invest in alternative assets like hedge funds and private markets, though most investors can improve their portfolio’s diversification by owning assets like real estate, commodities and precious metals. And these assets can provide an important potential hedge against downside risks in the stock and bond markets, while potentially improving returns, she adds.

Meanwhile, Call says his team likes certain commodities, like lithium and gold, though he says many investors may be better off in the stock market, like buying shares of gold miners.

Finally, cryptocurrencies continue to attract interest from investors, and especially because the Trump administration is crypto-friendly — though the speculative nature of these assets persists. Until cryptocurrencies are regulated, it’s “dangerous” to pour too much money into them, Cox says, particularly with the prospect of more volatility in other markets.

“It’s wise for most people to be very, very careful of how they position themselves,” he adds.

Digital tools improve workflow, efficiency for CPAs

When David Chase started working as a certified public accountant 25 years ago, he and his colleagues kept documents in big paper binders, the kind high school students commonly used in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The client would give you their paperwork, you’d make copies, put them in three-ring binders and work with pencils,” says Chase, head of tax at Wall Einhorn & Chernitzer, which is based in .

One of Chase’s colleagues, Angela R. Kerns, a CPA and managing shareholder at Wall Einhorn, recalls when auditors would use large rolling briefcases to transport paper documents from their offices to those of their clients and back. Internally, the briefcases would be rolled from junior accountants who conducted the initial work to senior accountants and finally to a partner who did the final overview.

During the last 15 years or so, advances in have dramatically changed the way firms do their work and how they interact with clients and each other. Using various technological tools has streamlined the way accounting firms operate and allowed them to work more efficiently, providing added value to clients, Chase says.

“Our firm is 35 years old, and the technology we use has changed many times since our inception,” he notes. “Many people think of the accounting business as paper intensive. It certainly is document intensive. With the tools available to us, we’ve been paperless for years.

“The use of digital tools is now pro forma throughout the accounting industry.”

The numbers bear him out. In 2024, the accounting software market size was an estimated $19.7 billion, and it is expected to grow to more than $30 billion by 2029, according to Research and Markets.

A Workday survey of more than 260 chief financial officers worldwide found that 48% of those CFOs plan to invest in technology that automates various tasks, including accounting, financial planning and reporting, to streamline workflows and boost employee productivity.

Antonina McAvoy, a partner at Newport News-based CPA and consulting firm PBMares, recalls when auditors and their clients would email large files back and forth.

“We used to rely on manual document request lists, historically managed in Excel and exchanged via email, which often led to delays and inefficiencies in version control between the auditor and the client,” she says. “Even with modern secure file request platforms that centralize documents and communications, an auditor may not review uploaded evidence immediately, due to scheduling. If submitted documents contain missing or incorrect information, we have to submit follow-ups or mark the request as still open.”

Under that system, “It may take a week or two for a client to get back to us and provide the correct information,” McAvoy says. “These delays can add up. You could lose a whole month.”

Technological innovations also have led to changes in staffing. About a decade ago, Wall Einhorn had a set of its own data centers and a robust IT staff to maintain them, Chase says. As tech has evolved, the need to maintain such facilities and to pay for a large IT staff has dissipated.

“As tech has evolved in the last 10 years, it has allowed us to go to an outsource model,” Chase says. “We have moved all our systems to the cloud.”

Speeding up work

Generative platforms — the most famous of which is ChatGPT — can conduct many tasks formerly performed by humans at accounting firms, including reviewing policy and procedure documents, checking basic information like job titles, producing financial and compliance reports, conducting real-time data analysis and summarizing a client’s financial information.

PBMares uses a generative AI platform from Fieldguide that’s designed specifically for advisory and audit firms. McAvoy says that auditors using the tool can review documents much more quickly.

“Generative AI allows the human auditor to efficiently analyze large volumes of data, freeing up time that would otherwise be spent on an initial manual review,” McAvoy explains. “This allows auditors to dive more deeply into all areas of client concern, perform additional audit tests, and identify potential fraud or security risks more effectively, go into greater depth in reviewing documents for such issues as fraud.”

What’s more, she adds, “the outcome is a more thorough, insightful audit that not only enhances value for the client but also provides them with strategic insights to make informed decisions that strengthen their business, improve operational resilience and drive greater shareholder value.”

During the last decade or so, many accounting firms have adopted tools like Slack, Zoom, Box, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and Google Drive to allow employees to collaborate and communicate in real time with each other and with clients.

Some accounting firms go further, using tools like sync boxes that bring all tasks together on one platform, using project management tools like to-do lists and dashboards.

Also, assisting accountants who are more comfortable crunching numbers than producing prose, ChatGPT is good for composing emails to clients and colleagues, as well as creating marketing plans. Chase says ChatGPT is also useful in updating a firm’s employee manual and HR documents, and he believes it will soon be used in performance evaluations.

“I can’t tell you how helpful it is when we need to address the firm, whether it’s remarks at a holiday party, a staff meeting or how we’re going to respond to the pandemic,” Chase says. “You drop it in there, you verify it, and you adjust it so it has the right tone.”

Another generative AI tool, Blue J, helps accountants find answers to complex tax questions by providing a sharply curated database, comprised of reliable tax resources, such as IRS codes and regulations, that is updated daily to keep up with changes to the tax code. The tool provides citations and source lists that are verifiable.

Rather than poring over traditional tax research tools, accountants can use Blue J to find answers in seconds. An experienced legal research team oversees the tool’s algorithms, and the tool also provides user feedback channels.

“I looked at Blue J a year-and-a-half ago. At that time, it was a shiny object,” Chase says. “Now we’re using it firmwide, from interns to senior partners. I’m very impressed.”

Despite all of the advances in AI tools, accounting firms still need humans to do certain tasks, and the sector has had notable struggles in hiring and retaining employees, although higher pay and better benefits have helped.

In the 2025 Virginia General Assembly, the House of Delegates and the state Senate passed legislation that broadens the avenues available to people seeking a CPA license. The legislation, which was requested by the Virginia Society of , is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2026, and will provide these three ways to obtain a license: A master’s degree and one year of relevant experience; a bachelor’s degree, 30 additional credit hours and a year of experience; or a bachelor’s degree and two years of experience.

CPAs still will have to pass the licensing exam, as well as completing 24 upper-level accounting credits and 24 business credits in college, but the changes give people with on-the-job experience an opportunity.

“We are highly encouraged by Virginia’s speed in implementing this alternative pathway,” Kerns says. “Our goal as a profession is to increase the number of college students pursuing accounting as their long-term career. While academic learning serves as a critical foundation, hands-on experience with industry tools provides an equally valuable form of education.”

 

Virginia 500 spotlight : JOE BENEVENTO

WHAT I WAS LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL: I was fairly social and outgoing, but I also captained the chess team and competed in the state championship.

HOW I BALANCE MY WORK AND PERSONAL LIVES: Since starting out in my career 20 years ago at Goldman Sachs, work has never really been a [9 to 5] job for me. I’m extremely fortunate that my wife — who is the real CEO of our household — enables me to enjoy a very active work and personal life.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: During my time at Harvard Business School, I learned that long-term compounding applies not only to but also to learning, growth and relationships.

ADVICE FOR NEW COLLEGE GRADUATES: Seek out mentors you can learn from. EQ (emotional intelligence) is just as important as IQ, and there’s no substitute for having a ‘degree’ in GSD — Getting Stuff Done.

DID YOU KNOW?
Before he joined , Benevento was managing director of a Richmond-based investment firm. He began his career at New York-based investment banking company Goldman Sachs and Boston-based private equity firm THL Partners.

SWCC to expand workforce development programs

Southwest Virginia Community College in Cedar Bluff is expanding its workforce programs this year with the help of three totaling $307,142 from the Virginia Coalfield Authority. These grants will support the college’s existing and scholarship programs and help launch a new electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle training program, all responding to burgeoning industry needs while lifting local job prospects.

One grant of up to $100,000 will fund emerging workforce scholarships for an estimated 40 students in 2025. The scholarships, which will offset tuition, testing and related fees, aim to stimulate enrollment in certification programs in high-demand, high-paying fields not eligible for federal Pell Grants. Since 2017, scholarships funded by VCEDA have helped more than 80 SWCC students get credentialed in varying fields like agriculture, renewable energy, transportation and logistics, medical services and unmanned aerial systems.

Another grant will provide up to $105,142 to expand the college’s automotive technology program to include a new two-year EV and hybrid vehicle technology certificate. The certificate, expected to welcome its first 24 students this fall, will help meet rising demand for EV and hybrid mechanics currently scarce in the Southwest Virginia region, according to Susan Lowe, the college’s vice president of institutional advancement. Funds have already been drawn down to procure equipment, including “trainer” cars designed to help students practice their skills; grant funds will also be used to cover instructor training and tuition assistance. Additionally, funding will help students in the new program gain other credentials sought after by local dealerships and repair shops.

Lastly, the college has already used a $102,000 grant to an additional tractor-truck and trailer to expand the college’s Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) training program. The equipment will allow the school to add a new cohort to its existing in-demand CDL program, increasing annual enrollment capacity by 48 students for a maximum of 144.

“We’ve seen that the workforce has become the preeminent factor in companies locating in an area, as well as existing companies being able to expand,” says VCEDA Executive Director Jonathan Belcher. “The in our region do a great job of preparing the workforce for the jobs that are here today while thinking proactively about the jobs of tomorrow, like EV and hybrid technology.”

 

Danville-Pittsylvania authority invests in history

Using a $1.89 million loan from the Virginia Financing Authority, and officials plan to about 289 acres adjacent to the Southern Virginia at .

Members of the (RIFA) unanimously agreed in January to move forward with purchasing the at 5981 Berry Hill Road, the site of the former Oak Hill plantation, from the estate of Waller Hairston.

The goal of the purchase isn’t to prep more acreage for a potential boom of following the November announcement that Microporous, a Tennessee-based manufacturer of battery separators, plans to invest $1.35 billion to build a manufacturing facility at the Berry Hill industrial park.

“This is not going to be part of the megasite,” Matt Rowe, director of for Pittsylvania County, stresses.

The main home on the property, mostly destroyed by a 1988 fire, was believed to have been built in the first quarter of the 19th century and was owned by Samuel Hairston, who has been described as the largest enslaver in the South. The site includes the ruins of the home, as well as those of quarters for enslaved people and a terraced garden.

“There’s significant cultural elements on the property,” says Rowe. “Historically, only the plantation owners’ history has been told, and I know it’s very important to the RIFA board to tell all of the history.”

Purchasing the Oak Hill property also provides a solution to a problem the authority has wrestled with since the localities began developing the 3,528-acre megasite in 2008: what to do about two cemeteries, believed to be populated by former enslaved people and tenant farmers, who lived between 1870 and 1950, that are located on the park’s Lot 3. For RIFA members, the chief concern, according to Rowe, is that development of the megasite might somehow impede access to the graves.

In October, RIFA members approved plans to pay up to $353,533 to WSP USA, a New York professional services firm, to relocate more than 100 unmarked graves to another area of the megasite that’s close to the Oak Hill property.

“Our goal would likely be to do … a boundary line adjustment to put that entire consolidated cemetery all on the same property as that of the plantation home and the other … historic elements to create this one central cultural lot,” Rowe says.

 

STARTVIRGINIA April 2025 news roundup

Antithesis Operations, a Vienna software testing startup whose tools find bugs in computer programming code, announced in mid-February it had raised $30 million in new funding. The company aims to double its workforce and continue its expansion into new markets. Repeat investor Amplify Partners, a California-based venture capital firm, led the funding round, and San Francisco’s Spark Capital participated. The new funding came less than a year after Antithesis emerged from stealth in March 2024 with $47 million in fresh capital. The company had 40 employees then and now has 70 employees. (DC Inno)

Herndon startup Knostic has raised $11 million to expand its workforce and further develop its products that help companies adopting tools avoid disclosing sensitive internal information with need-to-know controls, the company announced March 5. Portugal-based venture capital firm Bright Pixel Capital led the round, which included participation from San Francisco’s Silicon Valley CISO and California’s DNX Ventures. The fresh funding brings Knostic’s total outside investment to $14 million since its founding. Cybersecurity veterans Gadi Evron and Sounil Yu launched the company in 2023. (DC Inno)

Richmond’s Lighthouse Labs revealed in mid-February the participants of its 18th accelerator cohort, selected from a field of nearly 100 applications. The cohort includes: Absurd Snacks, a Richmond food products company; Buckstop, a Richmond lifecycle services company for smart device manufacturers; EarthaPro, a Haymarket management software company; Sartography, a Staunton tool company; Tow Ninja, a Mechanicsville fintech platform; Utrain, a Charlottesville company with an app for basketball trainers; and VroomBrick, a Hampton startup with step-by-step software for military families and veterans buying homes. (Richmond Inno)

Rune Technologies, an County defense tech company building software to enable military logistics in contested environments, announced on Feb. 26 it had raised $6.2 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, with participation from Point72 Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital, as well as individual investments from several defense tech executives, including Gokul Subramanian, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering (software programs); Vannevar Labs CEO Brett Granberg; Cape CEO John Doyle; and Scott Sanders, Forterra’s chief growth officer. The funding will allow Rune to scale its engineering and product teams to drive expanded and testing of the company’s TyrOS software. (News release)

SpecterOps, an Alexandria-based adversary-focused cybersecurity solutions provider, raised a $75 million Series B funding round, the startup announced March 5. Global software investor Insight Partners led the round, which had participation from other investors like Ansa Capital, M12, Ballistic Ventures, Decibel and Cisco Investments. The funding will support SpecterOps’ rapid scaling of its BloodHound Enterprise platform for removing identity-based attack paths. The company launched BHE in 2021 to help organizations fortify their Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID platforms against this security issue. (News release)

PEOPLE

Brenda Boehm joined RiPSIM Technologies as its CEO, the Ashburn startup with a software-as-a-service eSIM platform announced in early February. The company’s co-founder, Chris Jahr, became chief strategy officer. Boehm has held leadership roles with Fortune 100 tech companies like Dell Technologies and Cisco, as well as with Starent Networks, Tango Networks, Cyphre and Underline Infrastructure. She was also chief strategy officer for the Telecommunications Industry Association for a little over a year. Boehm has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana and a master’s degree from Southern Methodist University. (News release)

Virginia Best Places to Work 2025 Experience Sponsor: CV International

At CV International (CVI), our vision is to be the most trusted partner in global trade. Headquartered in , CVI is Virginia’s preeminent “local” freight forwarder, with a long and proud history of serving shippers in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast region. As a subsidiary of CVI, Capes Shipping Agencies offers port agency and cargo forwarding services along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts. Capes’ unparalleled local expertise and strong relationships give us the “local advantage” and allow us to consistently exceed our customers’ expectations. Together, we strive to deliver personalized international logistics and shipping solutions through a values-based culture of service excellence.

We aim to differentiate ourselves with outstanding service, , professionalism, and deep subject matter expertise. Our people make the difference, so supporting their well-being and professional success is a top strategic priority. With a culture built around our Vision, Mission, and Core Values, we emphasize the growth and of our team – an opportunity for everyone to reach their highest potential.

We are excited and proud to be recognized in the 2025 in Virginia program! This is a much-appreciated acknowledgment on our journey to make CVI and Capes Shipping Agencies a great place to work!