LMI Ventures has established a partnership with Immuta, which focuses on data management, in its first deal since being established several months ago.
Ian Folau, tapped to run LMI's venture capital fund, told Inside Defense this week the partnership with Immuta "is turning out to be a really good investment."
A company spokesman said "LMI has partnered with Immuta to develop analytics environments that implement access controls and ensure compliance with privacy regulations prior to machine learning algorithms being deployed on data sets."
"The algorithms will enable the Department of Defense and service branches to leverage their data to improve maintenance and sustainment processes, strengthening weapon system readiness," he added.
Folau told Inside Defense LMI Ventures has potential investments -- which it distinguishes from partnerships -- in its pipeline.
The organization was created to find key technology that could benefit LMI's customers. David Zolet, LMI's chief executive, told Inside Defense earlier this year the organization would make small bets in early-stage companies.
Folau said he's met with LMI executives to discuss the problems they're facing. At the same time, he's regularly pitched by startups who want to share their ideas.
There's an "outbound marketing effort telling the world, 'Hey, these are the specific things that we're looking for,'" he said. "However, there is an inbound portion to this."
Folau said LMI has also put together tech showcases, during which startups can come into LMI and pitch their companies to employees.
Some companies, Folau said, don't necessarily need financial backing, but can instead use help getting their products government-ready.
He said LMI Ventures also sees opportunity in providing their tech scouting capabilities as a service to government clients. Folau said the organization just submitted a proposal to an interested government agency.