An accelerator is hosting a 10-week program focused on cybersecurity in Bentonville. Startup Junkie’s Fuel Accelerator has worked with entrepreneurs and startups over the last 6 years, with a recent focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Darian Harris is the director of Fuel Accelerator, he said a gap they have seen in the business to business market is utilizing AI and machine learning to improve cybersecurity.
"Identity and access management, security operations, threatened vulnerability management, cloud security, data security, and privacy. Those are a couple of the fields that we’re looking to focus in on that have been identified by some of the enterprises that we’re working with."
Harris said they are looking to work with startups that are not necessarily brand new, typically companies that are post-revenue.
"The idea of that is so that we can help them scale their enterprise business, not start from the idea stage. Everyone will see that we work with specifically in that seed to Series-A fundraising space, so we really want to see companies that are post-revenue that are looking to sell into large enterprises that we have here. We have some great partners and some great people involved."
Fuel Accelerator is a no-cost and no-equity program. Harris said that allows them to follow their mission to support startups.
"We bring in companies from all over the world to solve technology problems that we don’t have solved. Ultimately the goal is to create economic development, create jobs, and bring new technologies to the area. What’s our main goal? It’s really two-prongs: to help startups and create development."
The cybersecurity program is set to begin in early June.
