Why Markup
Markup is a Washington DC based company focused on creating secure, reliable, and easy-to-use technology that makes governing more collaborative and efficient.
Why Markup
Markup is a Washington DC based company focused on creating secure, reliable, and easy-to-use technology that makes governing more collaborative and efficient.
About Us
Markup builds collaborative governing technology. We are a Washington DC-based team of public policy and technology professionals dedicated to creating smart and secure systems to bring deeper collaboration, greater accuracy, and more efficiency to the policy making process.
Markup’s core products, Markup Redline™ and Markup ERVS®, are purpose-built to help lawmakers, regulators, lawyers, and public policy processionals at all levels of government.
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Markup Redline™ enables the fast and accurate comparison of how pending legislation will impact existing statutes and regulatory code, draft changes and amendments to bills, and collaborate with colleagues.
Markup ERVS® platform provides for the casting of verifiable votes by authorized elected officials, remotely, over a secure platform.
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Markup LLC is a Microsoft Certified Development Partner and a Microsoft Qualified Startup. In May 2020, Markup Redline became authorized and available for use by the US House of Representatives.
Executive Team
CEO & Co-Founder
Peter Harter
Peter bridges the ecosystems of technology, policy, business, law, politics, and entrepreneurship. As the Founder of The Farrington Group, a privately held consulting firm, Peter provides advice to management, boards and investors on political, legislative, and regulatory risk. Areas of focus are patents, cybersecurity, data, and precision agriculture.
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman
Andrew Baluch
Andrew is an independent inventor and IP lawyer, and a founding partner of Smith Baluch, LLP, a law firm representing clients with complex intellectual property matters. He is a former White House Director International IP enforcement, and a former expert legal advisor to the Director of the USPTO.
Advisory Board
Philip Kiko
Advisor
Principal, Kiko Strategies
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Former: Chief Administrative Officer of U.S. House of Representatives; Chief of Staff and General Counsel to House Judiciary and House Administration Committees and other Senior House Committee and Member Offices
Hazen Marshall
Advisor
Co-President, Marshall & Popp
Former: Policy Director to the Senate Majority Leader; Partner, The Nickles Group; Staff Director, Senate Budget Committee
Stephen Shackelford
Advisor
Partner, Susman Godfrey LLP
Former: Clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
Lindsey Parham
Advisor
Principal, La Cima Partners
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Former: Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator; Political Advisor to Texas GOP Federal and State Officials
Brian Screnar
Advisor
Head of Global Operations, otaaki
Former: Chief of Staff to the Founder, Intellectual Ventures; Finance Director, Presidential Inaugural Committee
Bill Crowell
Advisor
Former: Deputy Director, NSA; former Narus Chairman – National Security Senior Advisory Group
Chris Donesa
Advisor
Former: Legal Counsel to Clerk of U.S. House of Representatives; Chief Counsel to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Clyde E. Williams, Jr.
Advisor
Former: National Political Director, Democratic National Committee; Domestic Policy Advisor
Christal Sheppard​
Advisor
Adjunct Faculty, University of Minnesota and University of Nebraska Colleges of Law
Former: Chief Counsel on Patents and Trademarks House Judiciary Committee; USPTO First Director for Midwest Regional Office; ITC General Counsel Office Attorney
Ayesha Hassan
Advisor
Executive Relations Officer, the Marconi Society, Executive Director AH Consulting;
Senior Fellow, People Centered Internet
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Former: Expert Consultant, International Telecommunications Union; Vice President, Stakeholder Relations, Internet Society (ISOC); Senior Policy Manager, Commission on the Digital Economy, and Executive in Charge of the BASIS initiative, Business Action to Support the Information Society, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Paris; Head of Online Dispute Resolution; Squaretrade Associate, Burnham & Brown law firm
Mona Sutphen
Advisor
Former: Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy; White House National Security Council
Jonah Seiger
Advisor
Former: Digital agency founder & CEO, Co-Founder Center for Democracy & Technology
Simon Rosenberg
Advisor
President, New Democratic Network & the New Policy Institute
Board member: Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University; Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute
Joe Straus
Advisor
Former: Speaker of the House, Texas House of Representatives
Company History
The name Markup is an homage to "Hypertext Markup Language" (which forms the foundation of the world wide web), the phrase "marking up" (redlining) documents, and congressional markup committee work sessions.
Founded in 2016, Markup began with a vision to apply modern technology to the vital work of lawmaking. Our goal was (and remains) to help public policy professionals better understand how their work connects to existing law and statues, and to bring greater efficiency collaboration to the policy making process.
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Markup is building a secure suite of tools for legislators, regulators, public policy professionals and stakeholders to create, manage, influence and analyze public policy through timely knowledge, access to data, and secure and private collaboration across the public policy ecosystem.
Markup began as a web-application, and later a Microsoft teams app, under the name Markup.Law®. As we evolved from a start-up to a small technology company and we began to refine our offerings to include Markup ERVS®, a secure, auditable remote voting solution for legislatures and other decision making bodes.
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The rapid shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the critical need for Markup’s solutions. As governments respond to the present crisis, institutions have been hampered by outdated systems that hinder remote collaborative to work. The continuity of government depends on the deployment of secure, easy-to-use legislative drafting and remote voting systems.