NEWS & RESOURCES

IQT is the not-for-profit strategic investor that accelerates the development and delivery of cutting-edge technologies for U.S. government agencies that keep our nation safe.

Our work bridges the gap between the challenging technology needs of the U.S. national security agencies, the rapidly changing technology innovations of the startup world, and the venture community that funds those startups.
IQT supports the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies across the U.S. intelligence community, focusing on mission-critical areas such as cybersecurity, biotechnology, novel materials, remote sensing, deep learning for data analytics, and much more.

We make strategic investments in startups on behalf of the intelligence community, and also serve as an advisor that provides market, technology, and venture capital (VC) insights to our government customers.

In-Q-Tel is a play on the word “intel” referencing our clients in the intelligence community, and the letter Q, paying homage to the character Q from the James Bond novels.

Q, or Quartermaster, was the supplier of all of James Bond’s tools, technology, and gadgets that enabled him to adapt to any situation and stay ahead of his opponents.

This reference underscores our core commitment to ensuring that our intelligence community has access to the most innovative technologies necessary to safeguard our nation’s national security.

IQT sits at the intersection of the tech community, venture capital community, and the U.S. government – we speak the language of each and have trusted relationships with our government customers, the venture capital community, and the startup world alike.

Our team’s domain expertise spans a broad range of technology areas and their markets. This enables us to map technologies to our customers’ national security challenges with a strategic, comprehensive approach.

We develop a framework – what we call a technology architecture – that provides a system level view of the various capabilities necessary to solve a customer problem. Using this architecture, we are able to find and invest in those companies that provide technology to address those problems.

We look for companies and technologies that have both high national security impact and the potential for commercial success. This means the government isn’t footing the bill for the ground-up development of custom solutions.

IQT has a distinctive business model that is focused solely on mission impact. Our success is measured by the value our investments deliver to the intelligence community that furthers national security priorities, not financial profit.

Our distinctive role at the intersection of all stakeholders – our government customers, the venture capital community, and the startup world fuels our ability to make pertinent investments.

More than 75% of IQTs investments have been successfully delivered and tested in pilot projects by our government partners, and approximately 50% of these have been adopted for use.

IQT was established in 1999 to ensure that our country’s intelligence agencies had access to innovative technologies from the commercial startup community which are necessary to help protect and preserve our nation’s security.

Startups have traditionally avoided pursuing the federal marketplace due to burdensome processes and long timelines that tended to favor larger contracting organizations. Approximately 70% of IQT’s portfolio companies have never done business with the government. After working with IQT, 70% of our companies have acquired new government contracts.

The advantages of our model are significant:

• Startups receive funding for product enhancements that result in faster product development;
• IQT provides strong technical due diligence expertise to the VC community; and
• Our government partners obtain innovative technologies at lower initial and long-term costs.

IQT subject matter experts vet each technology against the architectures reflecting the requirements of our customers’ mission needs, then compares alternative approaches and rigorously validates technical claims.

Simultaneously, the investments team gauges the potential for long-term success by evaluating each company’s commercial potential, business plan, and management team.

The areas in which IQT invests are varied – everything from collaboration to communications, cyber to mobile security, data analytics to quantum computing, and novel materials to power solutions.

IQT invests in a wide variety of technology areas that reflect the needs of the U.S. national security agencies and include: collaboration, communications, mobile and cyber security, data analytics and management, video and imaging, and material and power solutions. Click here to see our portfolio.