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CIA-funded Indo-US firm makes smarter Web search

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CIOL Bureau
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Narayanan Madhavan

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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.

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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.

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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.

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