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In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
firm based in
Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C., the nati ...
. It invests in companies to keep the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in
information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...
in support of
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...
capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
.


History

Originally named Peleus and known as In-Q-It, In-Q-Tel was "the brainchild" of former Director of Central Intelligence
George Tenet George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Pr ...
. Gilman Louie was In-Q-Tel's first CEO and Norm Augustine, a former CEO of
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...
, led the board of directors. In-Q-Tel's mission is to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve United States
national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...
interests. Congress approved funding for In-Q-Tel, which was increased in later years. Origins of the corporation can also be traced to Ruth A. David, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1990s and promoted the importance of rapidly advancing information technology for the CIA. In-Q-Tel now engages with
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
s, growth companies, researchers, and venture capitalists to deliver technologies that provide superior capabilities for the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, DIA, NGA, and the wider intelligence community. In-Q-Tel concentrates on three broad commercial technology areas:
software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
,
infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...
and
materials science Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials sci ...
s. Former CIA director
George Tenet George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Pr ...
said,
We he CIAdecided to use our limited dollars to leverage technology developed elsewhere. In 1999 we chartered ... In-Q-Tel. ... While we pay the bills, In-Q-Tel is independent of CIA. CIA identifies pressing problems, and In-Q-Tel provides the technology to address them. The In-Q-Tel alliance has put the Agency back at the leading edge of technology ... This ... collaboration ... enabled CIA to take advantage of the technology that Las Vegas uses to identify corrupt card players and apply it to
link analysis In network theory, link analysis is a data-analysis technique used to evaluate relationships between nodes. Relationships may be identified among various types of nodes, including organizations, people and transactions. Link analysis has been us ...
for terrorists nowiki/>cf. the parallel Data mining">data-mining Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...
effort by the SOCOM- DIA operation Able Danger">United States Special Operations Command">SOCOM- DIA operation Able Danger], and to adapt the technology that online booksellers use and convert it to scour millions of pages of documents looking for unexpected results. In-Q-Tel sold 5,636 shares of Google, worth over US$2.2 million, on November 15, 2005. The share transfer was a result of Google's acquisition of
Keyhole, Inc Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
, the CIA-funded satellite mapping software now known as
Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
. In August 2006, In-Q-Tel reviewed more than 5,800 business plans and invested approximately $150M in more than 90 companies. As of 2016, In-Q-Tel listed 325 investments, but more than 100 were secret, according to the
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
.


Governance

In-Q-Tel is a Virginia-registered corporation, legally independent of the CIA or any other government agency. The corporation is bound by its Charter agreement and annual contract with the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, which set out the relationship between the two organizations. In-Q-Tel's mission (to support the Intelligence Community's technical needs) is promoted by the In-Q-Tel Interface Center (QIC), an office within the CIA that facilitates communication and relationships between In-Q-Tel and government intelligence organizations. While In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit corporation, it differs from IARPA and other models in that its employees and trustees can profit from its investments. A
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
investigation found that in 2016, nearly half of In-Q-Tel's trustees had a financial connection with a company the corporation had funded. In-Q-Tel's current president and CEO is Steve Bowsher. Original members of the board include Lee A. Ault, III, Norman R. Augustine, John Seely Brown, Stephen Friedman, Paul G. Kaminski, Jeong H. Kim, Alex J. Mandl, John N. McMahon, and William J. Perry. The chairman of the board is Michael M. Crow.


Investments

The company lists the majority of its investments on its website page. In-Q-Tel functions partially in public; however, what products it has and how they are used is strictly secret. According to ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', "virtually any U.S. entrepreneur, inventor or research scientist working on ways to analyze data has probably received a phone call from In-Q-Tel or at least been Googled by its staff of technology-watchers."


Software

* ArcSight – secure software * Attensity – search engine * Basis Technology – multilingual text analytics and cyber forensics * CallMiner – Phone speech analytics software *
Connectify Connectify () is an American software company that develops networking software for consumers, professionals and companies. Connectify Hotspot is a virtual software router, router and Wi-Fi repeater software for Microsoft Windows. Speedify is a ...
– Wifi & VPN * Convera RetrievalWare – search engine *
Destineer Destineer, Inc. was an American umbrella company covering a holding company, a video game publisher, and video game developer based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The company was founded by Peter Tamte, former executive vice-president of Bungie, in ...
– games FPS training simulation * Digital Reasoning – Synthesys v3.0 – review facts and associations at a glance * Endeca – search data repositories *
FireEye Trellix (formerly FireEye and McAfee Enterprise) is a privately held cybersecurity company that was founded in 2022. It provides hardware, software, and services to investigate cybersecurity attacks, protect against malicious software, and ana ...
– malware protection * Forterra – virtual worlds for training *
Huddle In sport, a huddle is the action of a team gathering together, usually in a tight circle, to strategize, motivate or celebrate. It is a popular strategy for keeping opponents insulated from sensitive information, and acts as a form of insulatio ...
– cloud-based content collaboration software *
Inktomi Inktomi Corporation was an American Internet service provider (ISP) software developer based in Foster City, California. Customers included Microsoft, HotBot, Amazon.com, eBay, and Walmart. The company developed Traffic Server, a proxy se ...
Corp – network infrastructure software * InnoCentive – crowdsourcing websites * Inxight – search engine *
Keyhole, Inc Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
– Geospatial visualization application (Acquired by Google in 2004 and would go on to become Google Earth in 2005) *
Language Weaver Language Weaver is the machine translation (MT) technology and brand of RWS. The brand name was revived in 2021 following the acquisition of SDL and Iconic Translation Machines Ltd. and the merging of the respective teams and technologies. Langua ...
– automatic language translation * Lingotek – translation services * MemSQL – Distributed, in-memory, SQL database management system for real-time analytics *
MetaCarta MetaCarta is a software company that developed one of the first search engines to use a map to find unstructured data, unstructured documents. The product uses natural language processing to georeference text for customers in Defense industry, de ...
– search engine *
Palantir Technologies Palantir Technologies Inc. is an American publicly traded company that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, and Alex Karp in 2 ...
– data integration, search and discovery, knowledge management, and secure collaboration * Platfora – big data analytics and visualization *
Recorded Future Recorded Future, Inc. is an American cybersecurity company founded in 2009, with headquarters in Somerville, Massachusetts. The company was acquired by MasterCard in 2024. History In 2007, co-founders Christopher Ahlberg and Staffan Truvé, bo ...
– web intelligence and
predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of Statistics, statistical techniques from data mining, Predictive modelling, predictive modeling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or other ...
* SRA OrionMagic – cms software * Socrata – Open Data Solutions for Government Innovation *
Spotfire TIBCO Spotfire is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics platform. Before being acquired by TIBCO in 2007, Spotfire was a business intelligence company based in Somerville, Massachusetts. History Spotfire was co-founded by Christophe ...
– visualization data analytics * Tacit Knowledge Systems – internal software *
Teradici Teradici Corporation was a privately held software company founded in 2004, which was acquired by HP Inc. in October 2021. Teradici initially developed a protocol (PCoIP) for compressing and decompressing images and sound when remotely accessing ...
Corporation – desktop virtualization * TerraGo – location intelligence applications and software GeoPDF * Traction Software – web 2.0 * Visual Sciences – real-time visual analysis * Wickr - Encrypted messaging application * zSpace (company) – 3-Dimensional holographic imaging displays


Infrastructure

;Hardware * Xanadu Quantum Technologies – photonic quantum computers * Tyfone – digital security for mobility, cloud, and IoT * Stoke Space – reusable rocket ;Data centers * Bay Microsystems – packet processing and data traffic * Systems Research and Development – real-time data warehousing * Network Appliance – Decru (networked data storage) * JetCool – liquid cooling for data centres ;Bioscience *
Colossal Biosciences Colossal Biosciences Inc. is an American biotechnology and genetic engineering company working to de-extinct several extinct animals, including the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the northern white rhinoceros, the dire wolf, and the dodo. ...


Related personnel

* Dan Geer (2008–present) Chief Information Security Officer * Michael D. Griffin – former president; later administrator of
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
. * Norman R. Augustine * Gilman Louie – former CEO * Paul G. Kaminski – former director *
Amit Yoran Amit Yoran (December 1, 1970 – January 3, 2025) was an American businessman, most notable as the chief executive officer of Tenable, Inc. from January 2017 to December 2024. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Center for Inte ...
– former CEO * John Seely Brown * Stephen Friedman * William J. Perry * Alex J. Mandl * Rebecca Bace * Luciana Borio * Peter Barris * Anita K. Jones * Jami Miscik * Jeong H. Kim


References


External links

* {{Central Intelligence Agency 1999 establishments in Virginia Financial services companies established in 1999 Privately held companies based in Virginia Venture capital firms of the United States Companies based in Arlington County, Virginia Central Intelligence Agency