> Being founded with funding from the CIA's venture capital arm seems tantamount to "CIA roots"

For the company, it’s a stretch but tenable. Saying the “founder has CIA roots” solely because they took an In-Q-Tel cheque is just wrong.

Yes, it would not be unreasonable to say that funding originating from In-Q-Tel has "CIA roots".

If someone claimed to have a CIA background solely on the basis that In-Q-Tel funded their mapping software, they'd be a charlatan. Just as a guy selling toilet paper to the CIA is not necessarily someone embedded in the intelligence community.