In-Q-Tel, the CIA's Investment Arm, Invests in Lucid Imagination
by Sam Dean - Jun. 15, 2009Comments (3)- Related Blog Posts
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Back in January, we wrote about the launch of Lucid Imagination, a Massachussetts-based startup focused on support and services for open source search technologies Apache Lucene and Solr. The company has $6 million from a Series A funding round led by Granite Ventures and Walden International, and focuses on services and support for developers and enterprises using Lucene and Solr. Today, the company has announced a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, which invests in technology solutions for the CIA and other factions of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It looks like Lucene and Solr search technologies will be used by 18 intelligence organizations sifting through masses of data.
The Lucene search library ranks among the top 5 Apache projects, and is installed at over 4,000 global companies. Although OStatic is primarily Drupal-based, our site's search is based on Lucene. The Solr search server transforms the Lucene search library into a ready-to-use search platform for building applications, and is the fastest growing Lucene sub-project.
Because proprietary search products are so expensive, many organizations are favoring Lucene/Solr, and In-Q-Tel's investment in Lucid Imagination will help government agencies develop around and get support for Lucene/Solr. “Given the increasing adoption of open source in general, and search and information retrieval in particular, Lucid Imagination is an important addition to our technology portfolio,” said Troy M. Pearsall, Executive Vice President of Architecture and Engineering at In-Q-Tel. “While we evaluate many technologies as part of our investment process, we only invest in the most promising capabilities. We recognize the value that Lucid Imagination brings to our customer agencies for their current and future efforts."
Lucid Imagination's team includes CEO Eric Gries, previously with XACCT Software and Compuware, and CTO Marc Krellenstein, formerly with Elsevier and Northern Light Technology. There are also technical leads who are key committers to Lucene and Solr.
We've had tremendously good results using Lucene at OStatic. It's relatively easy to deploy, and does accurate, fast searching that beats many proprietary alternatives. It's entirely likely that In-Q-Tel's investment in Lucid Imagination will extend Lucene and Solr to many other government agencies.
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