AI security company Mindgard announced a $8 million funding round. .406 Ventures led the round, which included participation from Atlantic Bridge, Willowtree Investments, and existing investors IQ Capital and Lakestar.
The company also announced that it had appointed two industry leaders: Head of Product and VP of Marketing. The new executives, Dave Ganly (a former Director of Product at Twilio) and Fergal Glynn – who most recently served as CMO at Next DLP (acquired by Fortinet) will play a major role in the company’s product development and launch Mindgard’s expansion into the North American market with a leadership presence in Boston.
The deployment and use of AI introduce new risks, creating a complex security landscape that traditional tools cannot address. So many AI products are being launched without security assurances, leaving organizations vulnerable.
Many new risks, such as LLM prompt injection and jailbreaks, exploit AI systems’ probabilistic and opaque nature, manifesting only at runtime. Securing these risks, unique to AI models and toolchains, requires a new approach.
Mindgard is transforming AI security testing and automated AI red teaming with its award-winning Dynamic Application Security Testing for AI (DAST-AI) solution. And this technology identifies and resolves AI-specific vulnerabilities that can only be detected during runtime. Continuous security testing is essential for organizations adopting AI or establishing guardrails to gain risk visibility across the AI lifecycle.
Mindgard’s solution integrates into existing automation, empowering security teams, developers, AI red teamers and pentesters to secure AI without disrupting established workflows.
KEY QUOTES:
“The rapid adoption of AI has introduced new and complex security risks that traditional tools cannot address. Mindgard’s innovative approach, born out of the distinct challenges of securing AI, equips security teams and developers with the tools they need to deliver secure AI systems. Mindgard is well-positioned to lead this emerging market and we are thrilled to partner with them on this journey.”
- Greg Dracon, Partner at .406 Ventures
“All software has security risks, and AI is no exception. The challenge is that the way these risks manifest within AI is fundamentally different from other software. Drawing on our 10 years of experience in AI security research, Mindgard was created to tackle this challenge. We’re proud to lead the charge toward creating a safer, more secure future for AI.”
- Dr. Peter Garraghan, CEO of Mindgard and Professor at Lancaster University
