Monday, February 2, 2009

Elemental Inks Development Deal with In-Q-Tel

Portland, Oregon-based Elemental Technologies, which develops massively parallel processing technology using off the shelf graphics processing hardware, said Monday that it has inked a strategic partnership and technology development with In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA and U.S. intelligence community. Details of the deal were not disclosed, however, In-Q-Tel generally makes an investment in companies as part of those strategic partnerships. Elemental is using graphics processing units to provide parallel processing for such things as video; on the consumer side, the firm has a product called Badaboom Media Coverter to rapidly convert videos from one format to another. That transcoding application plugs into software such as Adobe Premiere Pro. The application of Elemental's products and terms of any investment in Elemental by In-Q-Tel was not disclosed, however, the firm explained that the company's core technology has "broad applications for furthering the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community." Elemental has previously raised funding from General Catalyst Partners, Voyager Capital, the Oregon Angel Fund, the Bend Venture Conference, and the Seattle Alliance of Angels.