Washington, D.C
Washington DC Rises As A Tech Hub, Helped Along By The She-Economy
WASHINGTON, DC- OCTOBER 17: The Martin Lurther King, Jr. Memorial is seen in the trees turning fall … [+]
The knock against Washington DC as a tech hub has always been that it was too much of a government town: risk-averse, slow-moving, not worried enough about the bottom line.
But a lot has changed in the last 15 years, since people started trying to seed the culture of technology innovation outside Silicon Valley. Washington DC got a lot richer, for one thing.
Four of the 10 wealthiest counties in the country are in the DC metro area, as are the two very wealthiest – Falls Church and Loudon.
And the government itself became less and more powerful: The democracy grew weaker and the regulatory system in the hands of big companies that have captured much of it grew stronger. I took a look at my home-town ecosystem as part of a series looking at legacy cities and other second-tier markets.
Today, there is a tech hub growing in Washington, D.C., fueled by the wealth of the suburbs and partly built around that new government system. Pitchbook recently ranked the city 5th among startups, ahead of Austin and Seattle (and behind Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angles and Boston). Washington D.C. tech unicorns include ID.me and and Rebellion Defense (a military software provider), Pitchbook notes.
K Street Capital, which includes a $15 million venture fund and a $25 million fund of funds, invested in ID.me. Paige Soya, K Street’s managing partner, was a founder herself before beginning a career as an investor. There’s a lively debate now about whether DC is a “tier-one” city, she said. Whether it is or not, it’s on the rise, she notes.
“Government is increasingly a player in all these spaces,” she said. Part of K Street’s value proposition is helping small companies and startups gain a foothold in regulated industries where a giant may dominate the space and regulators’ attention. National security, finance and public affairs are three industries where a presence in DC or a connection to the city is a huge advantage.
Increased Role of Government An Opportunity For Some
Paige Soya, managing partner of K Street Capital
A recent fintech pitch event packed a room in the International Square with informed-sounding investors listening to pitches about companies including Wellthi, founded by Fonta Gilliam. The company embeds content and social connectivity inside existing banks’ apps and advertises partnerships with Zendesk, Sutton Bank and Visa on its web site.
Selena Strandburg, founder of The Know, an enterprise software company that supplies the public affairs teams at big companies understand how to respond to global news events, came to Washington, D.C. in 2019 to work on a company that worked on civic involvement. It led to The Know, which she founded in 2022. It’s raised more than $1 million and has a team of four.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that women are playing more of a role in Washington, D.C. than in other tech hubs, perhaps part of the she-economy that Mimi Montgomery of Axios wrote about last spring. Overall, the world of venture-backed tech companies remains shockingly dominated by men, with less than 3% of venture capital going to companies founded by women. (That number hasn’t budged in decades, and is about the same in the United States and Europe.). Women entrepreneurs and venture capitalists still face deep-seated cultural biases that have proven difficult to dislodge. If you needed more evidence of this, consider that women entrepreneurs who raise money from women venture capitalists have a harder time getting following rounds. As other industries are, venture capital is increasingly dominated by large firms that set the rules of the road: most of those are in turn dominated by a culture that heavily favors male leadership styles.
But The Statistics Don’t Tell The Whole Story
Though the statistics reflect the largest deals, which almost always involve male-founded companies, I see women in technology moving forward, mostly ignoring the obstacles and creating their own successes and definitions of success. For instance, women entrepreneurs are more likely to get funding if they say they are operating social enterprises – Wellthi identifies itself as one. Strandburg said she was motivated to become an entrepreneur after she noticed how much easier it was to make an impact in the world through companies.
And women continue to invest in other women.
At K Street Capital, about 25% of the investors are women, Soya said. About 35-40% of the companies it invests in across the company are women-led. “For some reason, DC has a more egalitarian culture,” Soya said.
Strandburg echoed that assessment, and said in her industry – public affairs and communications – she has found it to be an advantage to be a woman. “I have deep empathy for executives who make very challenging decisions impact thousands of employees’ lives,” she said. “Starting with empathy helps me solve the problems that literally keep customers up at night.”
Though, there are still parts of the DC tech scene that are almost entirely male-dominated, including national security. Mollie Breen, founder of Perygee, The company supplies no-code tools that help companies automate processes, including in the IT and security fields. Breen, a mathematician who worked at the NSA, said she is rarely the only woman in the room when founders or others from her industry. “But there are usually only a couple of us,” she said.
Homelessness in the D.C. region ticked up slightly from 2025 to 2026, according to a new report from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Homelessness in the D.C. region ticked up slightly from 2025 to 2026, according to a new report from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Christine Hong, chair of the council’s Homeless Services Committee and chief of services to End and Prevent Homelessness with the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, presented the findings at the council’s Wednesday meeting.
The report centers on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mandated point-in-time count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.
“This year, the count was conducted on Feb. 4. We had to postpone it one week due to the extreme cold and winter weather event that we experienced the week prior,” Hong said. “Although it’s an imperfect measure, it provides an important regional snapshot of homelessness on a single night.”
The D.C. region reported 9,790 total people experiencing homelessness, an increase of 131 people or about 1% from 2025. The year-over-year regional change was modest. This count is closer in line to the 2019 number, before the pandemic.
“The regional story is that homelessness fell during the pandemic era, a period when expanded federal resources and emergency protections were in place, and then increased after those temporary supports ended,” Hong said. “The main takeaway is that regional homelessness is no longer increasing at the pace seen in 2023 and 2024, and is in line with the years immediately preceding the pandemic.”
Results varied by jurisdiction.
D.C. had the largest numerical increase, with 225 additional people counted. Prince George’s County, Maryland, had 175 additional people counted, a 29% increase. Montgomery County saw the largest decrease, down by 390 people or 26%. Hong pointed to the county’s investment in short-term housing.
“Montgomery County also spent a great deal to expand emergency shelter for families, because we are committed to ensuring no family with children would sleep outside even one night,” she said.
The count also included detailed information on race, veterans and household types.
“The broader evidence is clear, and is referenced in the report, that housing costs and the cost of living are major drivers of homelessness risk, especially for families with low income,” Hong said. “In practical terms, this means family homelessness is closely tied to whether low-income families can find and maintain housing.”
Read the full report here.
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WASHINGTON – The D.C. police lieutenant arrested in a Chris Hansen sting operation is due in court Wednesday.
Lt. Matthew Mahl is accused of soliciting sex with a minor. FOX 5’s Melanie Alnwick reports that Mahl was charged with felony solicitation of a minor. A status hearing Wednesday morning suggests the case could be paused, not prosecuted or dismissed, though the reason remains unclear.
DC police lieutenant arrested in child exploitation investigation tied to Chris Hansen sting
Mahl was one of several people arrested in April as part of an online sting for Hansen’s show “Takedown,” which he describes as a predator investigative series. Hansen’s team, working with members of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, set up a “sting house” where targets were lured to an address believing they were meeting a juvenile for sex.
Mahl did not enter the sting house. Instead, he was taken out of his vehicle on the street and arrested. He did not answer questions during the post‑arrest interview.
Hansen’s earlier program, “To Catch a Predator,” drew controversy over its tactics, which critics said ruined lives and careers before cases reached court. Others praised the shows for removing alleged child predators from the streets.
Mahl is on administrative leave and has had his police powers revoked. The D.C. police department is conducting its own internal investigation.
The Source: This article was written using information from the Metropolitan Police Department, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and and previous FOX 5 reporting.
Washington, D.C
Billionaire Dan Snyder to List Mansion on George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate for $49.9 Million
Billionaire Dan Snyder is putting his Virginia mansion that stands on George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate back on the market, with plans to list it next week for $49.9 million.
It’s a more than $10 million price cut on the Alexandria property, which was asking $60 million when it was first listed in 2024. Even with the price reduction, the home, which is 13 miles south of the nation’s capital, remains the most expensive listing in the entire Washington, D.C., area.
The price change is a signal the owners are serious about selling, said listing agent Michael Sobhi of the Sobhi Group. “The right buyer for a property like this is tracking the market closely, and a sharp, confident repositioning tells them the seller is serious and the opportunity is real,” he added.
MORE: JFK and Jackie Kennedy’s D.C. Home Before Moving Into the White House Sells for $6.125 Million
It’s the first time Sobhi’s taking the property to market, as it was previously listed with a different brokerage.
Snyder, 61, bought the 16.5-acre estate in 2021 for $48 million, records with PropertyShark show, setting a D.C.-area price record. He bought it from Robert Stevens, the former chairman and CEO of the global defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Mansion Global reported at the time of the deal.
This isn’t the first D.C.-area megamansion the former Washington Commanders owner has tried to sell in the past few years.
Farther north on the other side of the Potomac River in Maryland, Snyder built a French chateau-style home on about 15 acres in 2004. He listed the property for sale in 2023 for $49 million, and after failing to find a buyer after a year on the market, he donated the property to the American Cancer Society, Mansion Global previously reported. The nonprofit sold the home at auction last year for $11.84 million.
The 16,000-square-foot Alexandria home is perched along the riverbank of the Potomac, allowing for both a picturesque setting and convenience—the estate has a private dock, giving the owner access to D.C. and other Northern Virginia waterfront destinations by boat. It occupies the largest privately-owned portion of the land that made up Washington’s estate, according to the listing.
Though built in the Federal style, the four-level mansion doesn’t date to Washington’s era—it was built in 2018. It has eight bedrooms and 15 bathrooms, and nearly every room in the house takes in views of the river.
MORE: Walmart’s Arkansas Hometown Is at the Center of an Emerging Luxury-Home Hot Spot
“There’s simply nothing else that offers this level of seclusion and waterfront living at this scale so close to the center of power in Washington,” Sobhi said.
Amenities range from an entertainment level with a full bar and a billiards table to a fitness center with a spa that includes a steam room, an infrared sauna and a resistance pool. There’s also a 15-seat theater, which Snyder upgraded with a 15-foot by 9-foot Stewart screen and “a fully DCI-compliant system that rivals a commercial cinema experience,” Sobhi said.
Additional structures include a 2,600-square-foot guest house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a carriage house with four garage bays and a studio apartment.
Mansion Global Boutique: Set a Spring-Themed Table
On the grounds, there’s an English-style boxwood garden, recreated based on original Mount Vernon plans.
Snyder, who, according to Forbes, has a net worth of $4.7 billion, couldn’t be reached for comment.
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