We are looking for companies that are dealing in areas we are interested in, that are at the beginning stages, with a good idea and a good staff."

The Mossad meets Sequoia Capital, one of the world's top venture capital firms, in a new technological innovation fund called Libertad.

That's rights, after excelling in various forms of spy craft, Israel's intelligence agency is now dipping its hand into the field of seed money for startups. Only it's not trying to turn a profit, rather stay a step ahead of the next big thing in technology.

Eli Groner, the director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, said in a conference call with journalists that the overall aim of the project, which has been in the works for the last 18 months and officially launched on Tuesday, is to enable the Mossad to take advantage of Israel’s unique startup ecosystem to ensure its technological superiority.

A Mossad employee identified on the call only as Aleph, said the Mossad has come to the conclusion that in today’s technological world, there is a need to find a way to work with startups.

We are looking for companies that are dealing in areas we are interested in, that are at the beginning stages, with a good idea and a good staff. We want a relationship with them and invest in their idea, so that they can fulfill their dreams and we can get the technology that we can use,” he said.

Both Groner and Aleph sid the idea was not to buy technology that already exists, but rather be involved in the early stages so that the Mossad gets the technology it feels it needs. Groner said nobody will ultimately know what the Mossad will do with the technology.

The US has something similar, called In-Q-Tel, that is defined as the “strategic investor for the US intelligence and defense communities that identifies and adapts cutting-edge technologies.”

According to the slick website for Libertad (www.libertad.gov.il), it “seeks to strengthen both startup companies and the Mossad's knowledge base, operating at the forefront of technological innovation.”

The Fund is offering up to NIS 2 million in equity free capital for R& of relevant, viable and groundbreaking projects. A larger investment may be approved in special cases. Groner said that the expectation is that in the beginning stages the Mossad will invest in five projects a year.

On Tuesday it issued calls for proposal in the fields of robotics, energy, encryption, web intelligence and big data and text analysis.

Aleph said the Mossad was not revealing anything by publicizing an interest in these fields, since it is logical these are the areas the intelligence community is interested in.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israels-Mossad-is-looking-for-a-few-good-startups-498063

Dis is nice.. Even me dey find where I go invest my small 10k.

What is DSS doing? Probably taking selfies with Evans