Led by former AWS and Oracle AI executives,
Protect AI leads in security posture management with the most
comprehensive end-to-end platform
Protect AI, the leading artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML) security company, today announced it has closed a
$60M Series B round of funding led by Evolution Equity Partners
with participation from 01 Advisors, StepStone Group, Samsung, and
existing investors Acrew Capital, boldstart ventures, Knollwood
Capital, Pelion Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. To date, the
company has raised a total of $108.5M to help organizations protect
ML systems and AI applications from unique security vulnerabilities
and emerging threats.
Protect AI will use the new financing to drive the next phase of
innovation and capabilities for its customers, enhancing its AI
security posture management platform. This capital infusion will
accelerate the company's growth by expanding customer success and
sales resources, advancing R&D, and strengthening channel
programs. Protect AI is positioned to extend its lead in the AI
security market, providing unmatched protection for AI applications
and systems worldwide.
“In less than 12 months Protect AI has built the leading AI
security platform in the market by addressing AI risks end-to-end,”
said Richard Seewald, Founder and Managing Partner at Evolution
Equity Partners. “By focusing on comprehensive AI security posture
management that spans ML models, LLMs and AI supply chain threats,
the company is now a trusted partner for national security
organizations and Fortune 500 customers, alike.”
Since raising $35M in Series A funding one year ago, Protect AI
has solidified its leadership in the AI security market. The
Protect AI security posture management (AI-SPM) platform is now
used by private and public sector customers to secure traditional
ML models, LLMs, ML systems, and AI applications. The platform has
expanded from one to five products, becoming the most comprehensive
end-to-end AI security solution available.
The company's huntr AI/ML threat research community has grown to
more than 15,000 members who identify and fix vulnerabilities in
crucial AI/ML supply chain projects. Protect AI’s five open-source
offerings have been downloaded millions of times, and MLSecOps.com
continues to lead AI security education and knowledge sharing. With
four acquisitions to date — Rebuff, Huntr, Laiyer AI, and SydeLabs
— and a 300% year-over-year team growth, Protect AI plans to add 50
more employees by the end of 2024.
“AI is being deployed across every industry at an accelerating
pace, and organizations have realized they need security guardrails
for these systems that are not being covered by incumbent security
providers,” said Ian Swanson, Co-Founder and CEO of Protect AI.
“This additional funding provides the resources to extend our
technology lead by providing even more unique AI security
capabilities for every element of AI-SPM, at every stage of the AI
development lifecycle, and serve customers across the globe. Our
mission is to lead the AI security category for years to come and
help customers build a safer AI-powered world.”
End-to-End AI Protection, from One Platform
AI Security Posture Management, or AI-SPM, is the practice of
continuously monitoring, managing, and improving the security of AI
systems and their components. It involves identifying
vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance with security policies, and
implementing measures to protect AI models and data throughout
their lifecycle. With AI-SPM, companies can ensure their AI systems
operate securely and reliably, minimizing risks of breaches,
misuse, and other security threats.
Protect AI’s industry-leading AI-SPM solution offers
comprehensive security capabilities such as Guardian, which scans
internally built ML models and externally acquired models for
threats, and Layer which is a dedicated GenAI security tool
designed for LLM security, observability, and governance.
Additional services include Radar, providing AI/ML bill of
materials with a robust policy engine, and Sightline, which is an
AI/ML threat feed derived from the unique supply chain research
conducted by the 15K+ Protect AI huntr community.
To further assist customers in securing their AI environments
and GenAI applications, Protect AI acquired SydeLabs prior to the
funding and closing of its Series B investment round. SydeLabs'
product, SydeBox, is an automated red teaming tool for GenAI
systems that helps customers identify vulnerabilities, ensure safer
model selection, and continuously improve the security of their LLM
based applications.
“As companies are evaluating LLMs to power AI applications, it
is essential to red team across multiple categories of risk from
jailbreaks to prompt extraction and susceptibility to prompt
injection attacks. SydeBox is the most advanced AI red teaming
suite, and we are excited to add this solution to the Protect AI
platform,” said SydeLabs Co Founder Ankita Kumari.
Channel partners, integrators, and resellers will also benefit
significantly from the Protect AI platform and continued product
advancements. By leveraging Protect AI's comprehensive AI-SPM
platform, partners can ensure their clients' AI environments are
secure, compliant, and resilient against threats.
World Wide Technology (WWT), a global technology solutions
provider with $20B in annual revenue, is at the forefront of the
secure AI Digital Revolution. By integrating strategy, execution,
and partnerships, WWT accelerates secure AI transformations for
large public and private organizations worldwide.
According to Todd Hathaway, Global Practice Manager for AI
Security Solutions at WWT: "Our partnership with Protect AI
perfectly aligns with our Global Cyber mission to deliver digital
security excellence. Protect AI’s comprehensive AI security
platform enhances our efforts to provide cutting-edge, secure AI
and generative AI outcomes. With offerings for first and third
party model security, LLM Security, AI-SPM, an AI/ML vulnerability
database, and automated red teaming for GenAI systems, Protect AI
stands unmatched in its breadth of security coverage for AI/ML
systems it makes available to our customers.”
Resources
- https://protectai.com/
- https://huntr.com/
- https://mlsecops.com/
About Evolution Equity Partners
Evolution Equity Partners, headquartered in New York City,
partners with rapidly growing cybersecurity software companies that
safeguard our digital world. The firm was founded by investor and
technology entrepreneurs Richard Seewald and Dennis Smith, who
manage and lead the firm, and its partners have been involved as
founders, investors and as senior operating executives in leading
software companies around the world. Evolution has invested in over
fifty cybersecurity companies building a growing portfolio of
market leaders. Learn more at www.evolutionequity.com and follow us
on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Protect AI
Protect AI empowers organizations to secure their AI
applications with comprehensive AI Security Posture Management
(AI-SPM) capabilities, enabling them to see, know, and manage their
ML environments effectively. The Protect AI Platform offers
end-to-end visibility, remediation, control, and governance,
safeguarding AI/ML systems from security threats and risks. Founded
by AI leaders from Amazon and Oracle, Protect AI is backed by top
investors, including Acrew Capital, boldstart ventures, Evolution
Equity Partners, Knollwood Capital, Pelion Ventures, 01 Advisors,
Samsung, StepStone Group, and Salesforce Ventures. The company is
headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Berlin and Bangalore. For
more information, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn and
Twitter.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240801066345/en/
Media Contact: Marc Gendron Marc Gendron PR for Protect AI
marc@mgpr.net 617-877-7480