In-Q-Tel: CIA’s Investment Capital Arm
“IQT Celebrates 20 Years of Innovation” - https://youtu.be/UddEgcbT3us
“14 cutting edge firms funded by the CIA”at https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-funded-by-cia-2016-9?IR=T states;
The Central Intelligence Agency has its own investment capital arm, and it's been pumping money into some of Silicon Valley's most innovative companies for years.
In-Q-Tel (named after "Q" in the James Bond films) [https://www.iqt.org/] invests in companies that can deliver useful technology to the intelligence community within 36 months. But since it's structured as an independent, non-profit organization, it's rather unique: It's a VC firm that doesn't really need to make money back for outside investors, and it can tap into the deep pockets of the intelligence "black budget."
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Cylance is using artificial intelligence to analyze and kill malware well before it becomes a problem. The product, CylancePROTECT, is used exclusively in the enterprise for large corporations, banks, and government clients. Cylance told Business Insider it would soon be launching a product for regular users as well.
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Orbital Insight analyzes the millions of satellite images being beamed back to Earth to answer all kinds of interesting questions. Orbital Insights has attracted plenty of interest beyond the CIA, which chipped in $5 million in 2016. Around that same time, Google Ventures led an investment round of $15 million.
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Cyphy built a tethered drone that can monitor an area for days at a time.
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BlueLine Grid made a communication platform similar to Slack with security and compliance in mind.
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Atlas Wearables created a fitness tracker that actually knows the specific exercise you are performing. Now its fitness tracker is sold in sporting goods stores or on Amazon.
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Fuel3d can capture highly-detailed three dimensional imagery of rooms, objects, or people.
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MindMeld is building voice recognition technology like Siri — for everything. Backed by Google Ventures and Samsung Ventures, among others, MindMeld offers the tech that allows more than 1,200 companies to put voice commands into their apps. “And we’re still just scratching the surface,” Founder and CEO Tim Tuttle told Entrepreneur. “Jarvis, the voice-activated computer used by Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies is only like five to 10 years away.”
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SnapDNA has a handheld device that can analyze DNA in minutes.
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Sonitus offers a wireless, two-way communications capability hidden inside the mouth.
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Palantir sifts through massive data sets to allow a user to track patterns or gain valuable insight from one software package, instead of looking into a bunch of different databases. Palantir is one of Silicon Valley's most secretive companies, which can be explained somewhat by its deep relationship with US military and intelligence clients. Spies are using Palantir's software to link together the huge cache of data gathered by CIA, DHS, NSA, and others. The military uses it to figure out whether a roadside bomb was built by a specific person. And even detectives with the LAPD are querying it to understand criminal ties. Palantir has expanded to offer solutions for healthcare and financial firms.
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BBN Technologies allows troops overseas to quickly translate foreign languages.
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Keyhole was a tiny 3d mapping startup with technology so useful it is still on most smartphones in the world today. Google bought the company in 2004, and subsequently rolled the tech into its popular Google Earth and other mapping products.
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Basis Technology can extract critical information from documents written in a foreign language.
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Oculis Labs stops people from spying on your computer screen.
You can view their huge portfolio at https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/. Probably not all of them will be listed.