It’s not often that a startup has about 1K customers before they even hire their first salesperson.

But that was the case for Chantilly, Va.-based cybersecurity company Atomicorp.  

Founded in 2015, the roughly 15-person startup is catching the eyes of seemingly everyone in the cyber market. The company just came out of its stint in Mach37‘s cyber accelerator program, and they already have over 2K customers including Texas Instruments, Century Link and the government of Hong Kong.

And last week, they announced that two former Mach37 leaders — Rick Gordon and Dan Woolley — were coming to its ranks as a board member and formal adviser, respectively.

“The primary approach that everyone tries to use to solve this problem revolves around really smart and expensive cybersecurity people and that approach doesn’t scale. For every three job openings in this industry, there’s one qualified person for it,” Michael Shinn, CEO and co-founder of Atomicorp, told me.

“We decided that we needed to develop technologies and products that were built for people who didn’t know anything about cybersecurity and were still just as powerful as the other products out there.”

I chatted with Shinn about the rapid growth, his entrepreneurial experience and their plans for a second equity raise. Read more: Meet the Va. Cybersecurity Startup That Brought Mach37’s Former Execs to Its Team

Bethesda, Md.-based Spotluck is on the move. The app designed to help you explore new restaurants in different cities expanded into Newark, NJ today, with participating restaurants including Klondike Kate’s, Catherine Rooney’s and Home Grown Café. The app is also available in the D.C. metro area, New York City, Delaware and Philadelphia.  

Sweetgreen’s new Georgetown location, via Eater DC

ICYMI, Sweetgreen is set to open its largest location to date in Georgetown next Friday. The new location at 1044 Wisconsin Ave. NW spans 2.2K sq. ft., including space for a weekly farmers market in the parking lot.

You can consider this opening a return to home for Sweetgreen, when, 10 years ago, three Georgetown University alums opened up the first Sweetgreen in a 560 sq. ft. shop. Now, they have over 70 locations nationwide. Eater DC has the inside look at the new location. 

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• Meet the new director of Inova Health System’s business accelerator — and what he’s looking for [WBJ]
• Elon Musk’s Boring Company wins approval to dig a two-mile test tunnel in California [The Verge]

Because it’s Friday, Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis took to LinkedIn to share his latest think piece “Hire. More. Women.” “With the WNBA’s Washington Mystics just landing a spot in the playoffs, Leonsis decided to share how having more women in his workplaces has benefited the companies he’s been a part of so far.

“I have found through decades of my own experience that there is a fundamental truth in business management: Empathetic organizations that are high in character, strength and integrity perform best. And those organizations are often led or run by women.”

We made it y’all! Head into the weekend with a game plan: tonight, head on over to MPOWER’s August FinTech Fiesta Happy Hour. Tomorrow, celebrate the launch of Sasha Alston’s book “Sasha Savvy Loves to Code” at In3. Sunday, re-charge and relax before heading into the week ahead. All the details and more events in the latest Inno Approved.

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Staff Writer: Sam Sabin, ssabin@americaninno.com

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