Apex, a leader in AI security, announced that it emerged from stealth with $7 million in seed funding. The funding round was co-led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, with notable angel investors participating.
Since the launching of ChatGPT in late 2022, there has been an exponential rise in the adoption of Generative AI capabilities across all industries worldwide. GenAI is becoming the core of every company, as 80% of Fortune 500 companies already have employees using ChatGPT for work. However, this rapid uptake of AI applications brings forth various security challenges for businesses, including potential data leaks, the risk of malicious data injection into organizational systems, concerns related to privacy and copyright infringements, and the threats of sophisticated AI-driven cyberattacks.
Apex built a security platform that offers organizations comprehensive visibility of their AI activity, allowing them to define how AI is used across the organization and enforce security policies accordingly. The platform can detect violations of a company’s or industry security standards and detect and respond to AI attacks so that companies can securely leverage cutting-edge AI technologies. Apex also adds a crucial security layer to AI models, applications, and large language models (LLMs). This platform includes a secure portal for productive and safe interaction with all the organization’s AI platforms.
The company was launched in 2023 by Matan Derman (CEO) and Tomer Avni (CPO), who met at the elite intelligence unit 8200, where they served as distinguished officers at the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel and Captain. Both have Master’s degrees from Stanford and Harvard, respectively.
KEY QUOTES:
“Apex was founded with the mission of empowering security and AI teams to enable the secure and swift AI adoption within world-class organizations. During the company’s founding, we consulted with dozens of executives to understand their needs and discovered a reluctance to adopt advanced AI due to security concerns. Apex is positioned to change all that, playing a key role in helping organizations secure AI models and applications and enabling them to leverage the power of AI safely.”
– Matan Derman, Co-Founder and CEO at Apex
“Every wave of disruptive innovation introduces new security threats and attack vectors, and generative AI is no exception. The world is elated by the possibility for Gen AI to increase productivity, and even create new markets, But at the same time, awareness is building that sensitive data can leave the corporate perimeter, and that Gen AI outputs are manipulated. Therefore the adoption of this new generation of AI services needs to go hand in hand with building out the infrastructure to securely use them. We are proud to partner with Matan and Tomer, and we are excited to see Apex Security quickly emerging as the leader in generative AI security. “
– Bogomil Balkansky, Partner at Sequoia Capital
“Every wave of new technology, while exciting, introduces multiple security threats requiring a fresh approach. As companies start using AI and large language models, they expose themselves to new risks, including data leaks, privacy, intellectual property breaches, or dedicated AI attacks. Apex is focused on resolving this particular dilemma-one of the biggest cybersecurity challenges facing today’s tech industry-using an innovative framework that actively mitigates AI risks on a large scale.”
– Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures
