The news: WhyLabs, a spinout from the Seattle's Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), raised $10 million and released a new tool to support machine learning applications. The problem: As more companies leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence, the need to capture and correct failures is becoming more urgent. Reliance on algorithms can lead to negative implications, as evidenced this week by Zillow Group, for example. "The challenges begin once the machine learning system is live -- it automates millions of decisions a day," a WhyLabs spokesperson told GeekWire in an email. "Monitoring how well it's working becomes critical, because machine learning systems fail in often catastrophic ways."

WhyLabs, a machine learning startup that was spun out of the Allen Institute last year, helps data teams monitor the health of their AI models and the data pipelines that fuel them. Last year, the startup raised a $4 million seed round and today, the team announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A round co-led by Defy Partners and Andrew Ng's AI Fund. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Bezos Expeditions also participated in this round. Only a few years ago, "MLOps" wasn't really a thing, but it's now an established category and we're now seeing a growing number of startups and established players who are trying to get an early foothold in this market. "It's top of mind for everyone," WhyLabs CEO Alessya Visnjic said.