From The Intercept, May 5:
Leaders of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-backed venture fund, and retired CIA officials are getting in on the latest stock market trend.
Top leadership for Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, have quietly launched a separate “blank check” fund that stands to fuel astronomical fortunes for former intelligence officials.
In-Q-Tel, which receives funding and directions from the CIA, was founded by the CIA in the late ’90s to spur private sector innovation with the goal of bringing the latest technology to market to fuel America’s covert national security operations. Now, its chief executive and president are taking advantage of the latest stock market fad to create financial windfall for themselves and a small set of former national security officials.
In November, a “special purpose acquisition company,” or SPAC, called Chain Bridge I filed for an initial public offering designed to raise $200 million. The fund, which had little fanfare, was formed by In-Q-Tel’s senior leadership along with a team of retired CIA leaders and technology investors.
SPACs, which have surged in popularity over the last two years, are referred to as “blank check” funds because they allow investors to pool capital in a publicly traded fund, with no underlying assets or business model, for the sole purpose of acquiring a private company. In response to the wave of inadequate disclosure and fraud in the market, the SEC has proposed new rules governing SPACs.
Chain Bridge I is still seeking to acquire a defense contractor that is, according to the firm’s annual report, “poised to benefit” from government spending on national security.
“This is a case of the revolving door on steroids — not just using connections with former government colleagues on behalf of corporate interests, but setting up an entirely new corporate entity that trades on those ties to earn them a huge potential payoff,” said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
The blank check fund is clear that it hopes to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by leveraging its relationships with government decision-makers. The SPAC’s 10-K disclosure states that it will seek to acquire a national security technology company that is “poised to benefit from billions of dollars in defense spending in the near-term.”
“We intend to identify businesses with emerging technologies that will advance the DoD’s strategy as well as the broader interests of the United States in a period of increasing geopolitical instability,” the disclosure further notes, referencing the Department of Defense.
Chain Bridge I is the creation of the Chain Bridge Group, a Cayman Islands-registered investment fund led by In-Q-Tel CEO Christopher Darby, In-Q-Tel President Stephen Bowsher, and Michael Rolnick, a technology investor who previously advised billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. Darby, while helming the CIA’s venture capital fund, serves as chair of the SPAC and its largest investor. Darby’s Chain Bridge Group, with a 16.21 percent stake, is the largest shareholder of Chain Bridge I.
The SPAC board features former intelligence officials, such as Michael Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA; Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff to the director of the CIA; and Alex Younger, a retired career British intelligence officer. Other board members include Edward Sanderson Jr., a former chair of SAIC, a major intelligence contractor, and Nathaniel Fick, general manager of the intelligence contractor Elastic and the former head of the Center for a New American Security, the defense think tank in Washington, D.C....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
August 2016
The CIA’s Venture-Capital Firm, Like Its Sponsor, Operates in the Shadows
This is a pretty good look at the spook shop vehicle.
As a side note, back in the early years of this century, especially immediately after the mass murders of 9/11, it was thought that investing alongside In-Q-Tel was the cool thing to do.
It took a while for the realization to sink in that they weren't necessarily in it for the money return to the VC's....
Paging M. Macron: "CIA’s Venture Capital Arm Is Funding Skin Care Products That Collect DNA"
"Fake news 2.0: personalized, optimized, and even harder to stop"
"CIA has 137 projects going in artificial intelligence"
Quantum Computing: CIA and Bezos Invest in D-Wave Systems In.
"Hedge funds, VCs and the CIA are Throwing Money at ex-Bridgewater Data Scientists’ Startup"
Peter Thiel’s Pursuit Of Technological Progress; It’s Not About Democracy and It’s Definitely Not About Capitalism – Part 1
Inside Palantir, Silicon Valley’s Most Secretive Company
"Pokémon Go Is a Government Surveillance Psyop Conspiracy"
Amazon and the CIA Want to Teach Artificial Intelligence to Watch Us From Space (AMZN; NVDA)
Venture Capital: "Tech Companies And Their Love Affair With NSA and CIA" (GOOG)
And perhaps most alarming of all:
Robot Writing Moves from Journalism to Wall Street
The level of alarm is of course directly related to one's perspective.
