DARPA Groups Up With IQT to Develop Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative; Kacy Gerst Quoted

Kacy Gerst, Head of Trading Strategy at DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and In-Q-Tel, the intelligence community’s investment arm, will work together to help 150 research teams move ideas from laboratories to technology production over the next five years through the Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative, Nextgov reported on Thursday.

Through EEI, the Agency and IQT will provide funding to assist research teams in recruiting executives to drive the development of go-to-market strategies and to work with commercialization mentors and a DARPA working group composed of corporate investors to help bring technology platforms to market support.

Kacy Gerst, head of trading strategy at DARPA, said DARPA launched a pilot program two years ago as the agency’s technology projects in areas such as artificial intelligence, 5G and 6G telecommunications and microelectronics are key to the US military and EEI the US economy is looking to edge in the next century.

“More and more DARPA is investing in spaces with a massive commercial market and a small defense market, such as microelectronics and biotechnology,” Gerst told the publication. “If we want that [Defense Department]DOD, in order to be able to use these technologies in the future, they must be used in sustainable companies. ”

Gerst noted that EEI is trying to address the challenges arising from the lack of business relationships and experience required to help technical teams bring their platforms to market and the creation of controversial overseas investments.

DARPA will partner with IQT Emerge to expand EEI, which has helped over 30 research teams secure over $ 100 million in U.S. investment, enter into joint development agreements with corporate partners, and launch a dozen new companies.