Startup cash provided by Maryland taxpayers has helped develop billion-dollar technology companies, and about $104 million in state and local tax revenue, according to a recent study of the state’s program to fund university- and private-sector scientific research.

The latest example, announced Monday by University of Maryland scientists with Gov. Martin O’Malley in tow, is Zymetis, a young company with designs on turning trash into ethanol fuel with the help of a rare bacterium found more than 20 years ago in the Chesapeake Bay.