2. Venture Capital and MGA Global
Affairs
• New defense and security issues leads to
investment opportunities
(cybersecurity, microdrones, facial recognition
software)
• International development leads to a BILLION
ENTREPRENEURS and BoP (BOTTOM OF THE
PYRAMID) economic growth models
• African Venture capital or Guatemalan digital
media
3. In-Q-Tel
FROM FORBES November 2010
“Tiny cameras. Hearing devices for the teeth. Wi-fi for refrigerators. These are some of the products
made by companies that have caught the eye of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
One of the most recent companies to get an infusion of cash from the U.S. spy bureau's investment fund
is Cleversafe, a Chicago-based startup that offers software to keep data stored in cloud networks secure
by slicing it up and storing it in different locations. In a press release issued last month about the
investment, William Strecker, In-Q-Tel's chief technology officer, said the intelligence community is
looking for new ways to secure information given the increasing ubiquity of cloud computing.
The country's only federally funded venture capital firm was created in 1999, during the tech
boom, because the private sector was setting the pace in technological innovation, leaving the
intelligence community feeling not very intelligent. In-Q-Tel invests in startups developing technologies
that could prove useful to the CIA and the national security community. But it knew it had to adjust to
the Silicon Valley model to work. "The CIA had to offer Silicon Valley something of value, a business
model that the Valley understood; a model that provides those who joined hands with In-Q-Tel the
opportunity to commercialize their innovations," CIA official Rick Yannuzzi wrote in a briefing document
for the Defense Intelligence Journal in 2001.”
http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/19/in-q-tel-cia-venture-fund-business-washington-cia_slide_7.html
