Corporate Investment Funding for Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.

Round 1: $7M Initial Funding for EagleForce Associates, Inc.

EagleForce Associates, co-founded by Dr. Maren in 2001, received $7M initial venture capital investment in 2003 from a group organized and led by a hedge fund investment company. Dr. Maren’s invention of the knowledge discovery architecture (patent pending at that time) was the key factor in the venture group’s investment decision.

Round 2: $4M Second Round for EagleForce Associates, Inc. (later Viziant Corporation)

The venture group determined that EagleForce needed to re-organize and focus on building a product based on Dr. Maren’s knowledge discovery (KD) architecture, with the goal of creating an enterprise-class system serving the interests of large government organizations, with additional potential clients in the commercial sector.

To this end, the venture group required a complete change of Board Membership and a new management structure. During this timeframe, Dr. Maren secured the patent on the knowledge discovery architecture and was awarded two additional patents; one on evidence accrual for entity matching and another on a predictive analysis architecture.

Under the new organization, and renamed the Viziant Corporation, the company completed a first instantiation of Dr. Maren’s KD architecture. They successfully demonstrated its capabilities to various government and private-sector parties.

Dr. Maren left Viziant Corporation in July, 2008, in order to focus on developing a new approach to predictive intelligence. Prior to leaving, she ensured that the company’s first KD engine capability was performing as well as could be achieved at that time, and served as an advocate during presentations and technology and/or funding meetings.

In 2008, faced with the financial turbulence of the emerging Lehman Brothers Company meltdown, and the ensuing world-wide financial crisis, the venture group decided not to invest in the marketing stage. Viziant closed at the end of 2008.