By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com

Mark Anthony Thomas, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC), joined Kory Bailey, CEO of UpSurge, for a conversation on Aug. 19 to discuss the organizations’ vision and next steps following their recent merger. 

Last December, GBC, the region’s primary economic development organization, announced that it would integrate UpSurge, a nonprofit focused on building the start-up ecosystem, under its umbrella. A key motivation for the merger was to advance GBC’s All In 2035 Economic Opportunity Plan, a 10-year strategy focused on fostering a strong and sustainable innovation economy in the Greater Baltimore region. 

“With the foundational work of building and bringing the startup community together and establishing a baseline of awareness and activity support for founders in early-stage startup growth, we’re merging with a stronger regional economic development organization,” said Bailey. “We have the opportunity to pivot and leverage the machinery that GBC has built and the partnerships to refocus our team and work on activities that will generate more impact and scale.” 

While GBC has been around since 1955, UpSurge began its work in 2021 with the mission of creating a clear pathway and centralized community for startups to grow and scale. In 2024 , UpSurge engaged more than 250 startups, which raised nearly $300 million, and contributed to over $11 million in funding for technology and startup companies in collaboration with GBC. 

It also collaborated closely with GBC to earn a federal Tech Hub designation for Greater Baltimore. 

With the integration, GBC and UpSurge are looking to strike a balance between traditional business investment and efforts to attract and grow startups in Greater Baltimore—endeavors that are critical to creating a more dynamic economy for the region. 

“The merger brings with it those four years of foundational work, along with UpSurge’s trusted brand, team and an aligned mission,” said Bailey. “It underscores the importance of startup growth in GBC’s ‘All In’ 10-year economic plan and— considering the changing dynamics of federal spending— the importance of tech transfer and startup growth for the overall economic health and resilience of the region.” 

“Along with establishing a regional innovation office, which is also housed in GBC, integrating Upsurge also reflects a growing national trend of regional innovation and startup arms living with economic development organizations in house,” he added.

Going forward, GBC’s top priorities for UpSurge during its first year under the organization’s umbrella are to establish data infrastructure and identify high-value targets for startup growth. Back in January, UpSurge began building a database to capture and track the region’s tech startups in real time. Since then, it’s expanded to include not only tech startups but all companies that are scaling in the region. 

Currently, Upsurge has validated data on nearly 300 companies. The information will be used to help GBC and UpSurge stage more targeted interventions and investments with startups and determine sectors with the strongest potential to drive regional growth.

“The heavy focus is goal one, which is getting the data to a place where we all feel like we have a great story to tell about the ecosystem. The ecosystem report is a good start, but it’s not as comprehensive as what we need,” said Thomas. “Quantifying a methodology for how the region determines high-growth and high-potential startups is the second piece of the first goal.” 

Though this work marks a shift from UpSurge’s foundational focus on grassroots convening, Thomas said the organization will return to build on that work once there’s a more defined strategy for startup growth in the region. 

“There is a place for a lot of the community work that was happening, but it has to be in support of clearer economic development and company growth targets that we’re centering the work around,” said Thomas. “What I want to get to is five years from now, we have unicorns and major capital rounds for founders.”