CIA-funded venture firm seeks high-tech aid for US spies

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Arlington: companies’ financial health. It also has agreements ensuring it can access technology even if a company is sold or split up.

Most companies in which In-Q-Tel has invested have products that clearly cross commercial and CIA markets. Endeca Technologies Inc., which has an office in Atlanta, makes software that searches and analyzes data. Keyhole Inc. and MetaCarta make maps on which other data can be superimposed. Electro Energy Inc. and Qynergy Corp. make portable power equipment and batteries.

In the past, some of the companies In-Q-Tel has invested in have flopped. Others have been acquired. It has made some money when companies have gone public — money In-Q-Tel claims has been reinvested in its general investment fund.

The private company doesn’t release financial data. It says its companies have transferred more than 100 different technologies to the CIA, but won’t give specifics.

That secrecy aside, there’s little indication In-Q-Tel is controlled by the nation’s intelligence agency, other than maybe its name. The “Q” is a play on James Bond’s tech guru, and the “In” and “Tel” is short for intelligence.