In-Q-Tel (IQT), the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has set up its first Asia-Pacific office in Singapore which will see the firm increase its investments across the region.
The American not-for-profit venture capital firm, which has a portfolio of over 700 companies across the US, Europe, and Australia, focuses on early-stage deep-tech companies. Some of its well-known portfolio firms include Palantir, Rigetti Computing, GitLab, DataBricks, and Keyhole (acquired in 2003 by Google to form Google Maps).
Its latest foray into Singapore signals the emerging maturity of Asia’s deeptech ecosystem as well as the rising importance of the Southeast Asian city-state to US strategic interests.
IQT was founded in 1999 by the CIA and various US government agencies to stay abreast of cutting-edge innovation coming out of Silicon Valley. Its goal as a strategic investor is to identify and nurture solutions which will support the national security mission of the US and its allies.
Over the last eight years, the Virginia-based firm has been internationalising its operations to open offices in the UK and Australia, two key allies of the US.