HARTFORD—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced on Friday that Monroe innovator and cybersecurity company, Zorus, Inc., has been named “Murphy’s Innovator of the Month.” Zorus, Inc. is an innovative provider of cybersecurity solutions to help small and medium businesses grow and protect their clients. Their platform identifies and blocks malware directly from the cloud, and uses threat intelligence to monitor internet traffic to protect customers from viruses, ransomware, phishing scams and other forms of malware.   

“As our society becomes increasingly dependent on digital commerce, companies need to be more aware of threats to our cybersecurity,” said Murphy. “I’m proud to highlight Zorus for their innovation and leadership in finding novel solutions to protect companies from cyber-attacks and intrusions. Connecticut’s Angel Tax Credit helped Zorus get off the ground, and legislation I introduced in the Senate would replicate that successful model nationwide. I will continue to fight for this bill at the federal level, and I look forward to watching Zorus continue to grow right here in Connecticut,” said Murphy. 

"We've had great success in getting angels interested in investing in our company because of the Connecticut Angel Tax Credit program which over 90% of our angel investors have taken advantage of. For many it is what pushed them to take the dive. We plan to continue our growth and remain a Connecticut company, potentially moving to an opportunity zone in Stamford or Norwalk within the next couple of years," said Greg Gage, President and CEO of Zorus.   

Zorus was founded in 2017 by Greg Gage, a former employee of Norwalk-based Datto, in his basement in Newtown. To grow Zorus, Greg hired interns from various universities to get the company’s original proof of concept development before moving to an office in Monroe, where he began raising money from Connecticut Innovations, the UCONN Innovation Fund and many angel investors. Zorus has seen major growth over the past few years. They are aiming to launch a next generation employee web monitoring and productivity management tool in the next two months that will allow business owners to truly understand how their employees are spending their time. The company currently employs 8 people and expects to grow over the course of this year. 

Murphy believes entrepreneurship and innovation are the building blocks for a strong economy. In the U.S. Senate, he has introduced two bipartisan pieces of legislation to incentivize angel investors to put more money into startup companies – the Angel Tax Credit Act and the Helping Angels Lead Our Startups (HALOS) Act. Startup companies create an average of 2 million jobs each year.  

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