Protect AI lands a $13.5M investment to harden AI projects from attack • TechCrunch

Seeking to bring greater security to AI systems, Protect AI today raised $13.5 million in a seed-funding round co-led by Acrew Capital and Boldstart Ventures with participation from Knollwood Capital, Pelion Ventures and Aviso Ventures. Ian Swanson, the co-founder and CEO, said that the capital will be put toward product development and customer outreach as Protect AI emerges from stealth. Protect AI claims to be one of the few security companies focused entirely on developing tools to defend AI systems and machine learning models from exploits. Its product suite aims to help developers identify and fix AI and machine learning security vulnerabilities at various stages of the machine learning life cycle, Swanson explains, including vulnerabilities that could expose sensitive data. "As machine learning models usage grows exponentially in production use cases, we see AI builders needing products and solutions to make AI systems more secure, while recognizing the unique needs and threats surrounding machine learning code," Swanson told TechCrunch in an email interview. "We have researched and uncovered unique exploits and provide tools to reduce risk inherent in [machine learning] pipelines."