This past year, Gov. O'Malley and the General Assembly pushed forward the Invest Maryland program, which plans to pump $70+ million into early and seed stage startup companies in the state over the next five years or so, to drive innovation and job creation.

I wrote about InvestMaryland in detail here, including the tax revenue and investment mechanics behind the plan. (Basically, the state is selling tax credits to insurance companies.)

So the state will use a consultant -- who is being sought through the RFP below -- who will advise the state and oversee the various venture capital firms that will compete to receive an investment from the state. Get it?

It looks like this consultant will play a big role in creating the nitty-gritty guidelines of how InvestMaryland will work on the ground and help the state manage a portion of the fund. The consultant will be asked to come up with an investment strategy for the venture capital firms that get access to the state money to invest.

What is not transparent in this RFP is how much the consultant can expect to be paid by the state. All it says is that the contract will be paid based on "mutually negotiated terms" out of the Department of Business and Economic Development's existing fund sources.

The report also lays out a timeframe that we can expect to see InvestMaryland follow as it "comes to market," so to speak. By June next year, the DBED Secretary intends to choose the VC firms that will invest Maryland's dollars in startup companies.

VCConsultantForInvestMaryland RFP