Narayanan Madhavan
BANGALORE: The US Central Intelligence Agency has invested in a software firm
that aims to help companies manage data by searching documents and the Internet
more intelligently.
Stratify Inc, founded by Indian-born technology experts in the United States,
says its software ferrets out relevant documents by building up a profile of the
user. For the snooping agents of the CIA, such software could be of use in
tracking down vital information or studying patterns.
In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, Intel Capital, the funding arm of
chip-maker Intel Corp, and Mobius Venture Capital, the US arm of Softbank Corp,
are among a clutch of high-profile investors who have put in $36 million into
the company, which has a development center in Bangalore.
The software, whose first version was launched last September, interprets a
search request on the basis of context rather than a simple keyword by studying
the user's behaviour. "Over time this builds a hierarchy of you,"
Nimish Mehta, chief executive officer, told Reuters in a recent telephone
interview from Mountain View in California.
For instance, the word burgundy may mean a colour to a fashion designer, but
to a chef it is a usually a wine. The software can "learn" such user
patterns and hunt on a company's computers or the Internet for only those
documents likely to benefit the user, Mehta said.
"We help large companies manage unstructured data," Mehta said,
referring to documents and e-mails stored in computers but not organized
according to needs. Mehta said Britain's Autonomy Corp has similar technology
but Stratify's focus was broader because its software looks for files in any
program regardless of the operating system it is written for.
Mehta previously worked at Oracle Corp, the world's No. 2 software maker and
the pioneer in software for finding patterns in an organized database. In
contrast, Stratify's software focuses on any file, regardless of its nature or
location.
"We want to be the Oracle of unstructured data," Mehta said, adding
such information can be immensely useful to companies. "A well-written
e-mail can sometimes convey much more than a bunch of tables," he said.
The CIA's In-Q-Tel invests as a non-profit body to develop information
technology that enables gathering of information for national security in the
United States. Founded three years ago, it invests about $30 million a year.