Threat-detection tech firm plans to create 84 jobs

Emerging Threats Pro LLC, a tech-security firm based in Lafayette, said Wednesday morning that it is opening an outpost in Carmel and plans to create up to 84 high-wage jobs by 2019.

The company said it will invest $967,000 to lease and equip 4,000 square feet of office space in the Parkwood Crossing Business Park on 96th Street in Carmel. The new space will allow Emerging Threats to expand its product-and-development team, customer-service operations and inside-sales department.

Emerging Threats, which currently has 24 full-time employees, has begun hiring for sales, marketing, software engineers and product development positions. Specifics on the pay scale for the new positions were not immediately available.

“Indiana is great place for us to be located,” CEO Ken Gramley said, citing the quality tech-oriented graduates produced by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute and Purdue University in West Lafayette as well as the state’s “positive environment” for small businesses.

Founded in 2003, Emerging Threats provides Web-based malware and threat-intelligence products to equipment manufacturers and other clients around the world.

The company has been receiving increased attention in innovation and investing circles in recent years. In 2012, Network World named it one of six security firms to watch. In 2013, it landed venture capital, and this year it received an additional infusion of funding from the locally based HALO Investor Group. One of its directors is Bill Godfrey, who was CEO of locally based marketing software firm Aprimo before its $525 million sale to Teradata in 2011.

Emerging Threats didn’t start as a business. Initially, Matt Jonkman, now Emerging Threats’ chief technology officer, founded it as an open-source community—a project dedicated to collecting a database of threats and rules so that networks could fend off the increasingly sophisticated malware attacks on their platforms.

The database got the attention of the Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation, which in 2008 provided grants to further Emerging Threat's work.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. said in a press release Wednesday morning that it offered Emerging Threats up to $1.55 million in tax credits and up to $90,000 in training grants based on the company’s job-creation plans. The credits are performance-based, meaning until workers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives.

The IEDC said the company had base employment of 11 when it began discussing incentives, which means it needs to have 95 employees by the end of 2019 to qualify for the incentives. New employees must be paid at least $10.72 per hour, according to the contract.

"We congratulate Emerging Threats on its expansion in Carmel and we welcome the news that more high-paying jobs are being created,” said Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard. “This news is affirmation once again that the Carmel-Indianapolis area continues to develop a national reputation for creating and sustaining high-tech jobs."