HiddenLayer – a leading security provider for AI models and assets – recently announced that it has raised $50 million in Series A funding to expand its talent base, increase go-to-market efforts, and invest in its award-winning Machine Learning Security (MLSec) Platform. This investment marks the largest Series A funding raised by a cybersecurity company focused on protecting AI this year. The funding round was led by M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund) and Moore Strategic Ventures, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures, IBM Ventures, Capital One Ventures, and Ten Eleven Ventures.
The company has consistently demonstrated growth and market leadership since it emerged from stealth in July 2022. And the company added to its industry recognition by initiating partnerships with Intel and Databricks and earning accolades such as Most Innovative Startup at RSAC and Most Promising Early-Stage Startup by SC Media. The company also nearly quadrupled its headcount over the past year and planned to add 40 more experts to its staff by the end of the year. HiddenLayer defends Fortune 100 companies’ AI models across several verticals, including finance, government and defense, and cybersecurity.
HiddenLayer’s MLSec Platform offers a suite of products that provide comprehensive security for AI to protect ML models against adversarial attacks, vulnerabilities, and malicious code injections. And each product deployed within MLSec has been designed with unique strengths and capabilities for detection and response, culminating in a multifaceted defensive approach.
The company’s flagship Machine Learning Detection and Response (MLDR) product offers a noninvasive software-based approach to monitoring the inputs and outputs of AI algorithms. MLDR offers real-time defense to an otherwise unprotected asset and flexible response options, including alerting, isolation, profiling, and misleading.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI’s unparalleled rate of adoption fuels us to move even faster in achieving our mission to give every organization the right tools and expertise to leverage AI securely. We know almost every enterprise in the world is already using AI in multiple forms today, but we also know that no other technology has achieved such widespread adoption without security protections in place. We’re committed to creating the most frictionless security solutions on the market to satisfy this unmet need.”
– Chris Sestito, CEO and Co-Founder at HiddenLayer
“Inspired by their own experience with an adversarial AI attack, HiddenLayer’s founders built an essential platform for any enterprise working with AI and ML. Their first-hand knowledge of these attacks, combined with their vision and novel approach, position the company as the go-to solution to protect these models. From the moment we met the founders, we knew this was a big idea in security and wanted to help them scale.”
– Todd Graham, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund
“As AI continues to proliferate society, Booz Allen is on the front lines of developing and supplying solutions to governments and enterprise that are secure. This is paramount to protecting national security, extending economic power, and enabling companies in competitive markets. HiddenLayer’s powerful platform and expert team has proven effective in securing AI from a broad range of threats, so we quickly identified them as a partner that can support and protect our AI deployments. From our early discussions, it was clear to us that the HiddenLayer team has the vision and execution to continue developing security for the emerging AI market.”
– Travis Bales, Managing Director at Booz Allen Ventures
