“Too often government-funded R&D fails to gain a commercial footing because the government technology pipeline is not connected with entrepreneurs and early-stage capital — a great loss of economic and national security value to the United States,” said Simon Davidson, IQT Emerge executive vice president, in a statement. “IQT Emerge continues the IQT mission and pairs the organization’s sophistication in identifying technologies with potential commercial viability with the institutional knowledge on what it takes to build companies and bring products to market.”
The launch of IQT Emerge reflects a larger shift, initiated by the Trump administration in 2020, in how the U.S. intelligence community defends critical infrastructure and emerging technologies. National security agencies began collaborating with the private sector and moving more research and development projects in-house.