In-Q-Tel invests in big data analytics company

In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, has put an undisclosed amount of money into MemSQL, a big data analytics company based in San Francisco. The investment is expected to generate more market opportunities, particularly in the intelligence community.

MemSQL’s in-memory distributed database technology is designed to let clients quickly capture, store and query hundreds of terabytes of data.

“In-memory databases have been rapidly gaining market acceptance as more organizations aim to deal simultaneously with both the volume and velocity aspects of Big Data. However, real-time operational control for clusters was a void in the market that MemSQL has successfully filled,” Eric Frenkiel, CEO and co-founder at MemSQL, said in a statement Sept. 24 about the investment.

In-Q-Tel’s investment “reflects the deep interest in big data analytics that we’re seeing among several industries, including federal,” Frenkiel also said.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.