Portal26 (formerly Titaniam) is an award-winning Generative AI (GenAI) visibility and data security leader. The company’s GenAI Visibility and AI Trust, Risk, and Security Management (AI TRiSM) SaaS Platform helps organizations embrace and accelerate the competitive promise of GenAI throughout the enterprise. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Portal26 CEO and founder Arti Raman to learn more about the company.
Arti Raman’s Background
Raman grew up in India, where her father served in the Indian Air Force, so she spent a lot of her childhood moving around and adapting to new environments. Raman said:
“While eventually I landed into a boarding school to provide some stability, I had a great deal of experience in trusting myself and my abilities at a young age. By the time I received my Bachelor’s degree, I was ready to forge my own path ahead and eventually moved to the United States to pursue my higher education. The life experience and lessons taught to me early on were a great power I still use today, allowing me to trust myself and overcome challenges.”
“While I pursued higher education in business and worked consultancy jobs initially, I began my cybersecurity journey after deciding to follow a trusted mentor to a security startup. There, I helped enterprises comply with regulations and frameworks, although my passion for the field came later due to the 2017 Equifax breach. More recently, as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has emerged as a game-changing technology, I have found myself drawing on my experiences in both security and business to find ways to accelerate adoption while minimizing risks.”
Formation Of Portal26
How did the idea for Portal26 come together? Raman shared:
“I was one of millions in America who was impacted by the 2017 Equifax data breach, and near the same time frame, I noticed there were several other high-profile data breaches where individual personal data was stolen. Through this, I realized how long-lasting these events often become, and I decided to take action. Once stolen, breached data can be used to compromise other systems, creating a cycle. From this experience, I decided to look into ways I could protect personal data, and thus, my company was born.”
“The 2017 Equifax breach was the genesis for the company’s original iteration as a data security and encryption platform. However, the recent artificial intelligence (AI) boom inspired my company’s current version, Portal26 (formerly Titaniam), to provide GenAI Analytics and Insights alongside the original data security concept.”
“Portal26 now gives real-time visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned GenAI use. In other words, a portal into what’s occurring internally and gives businesses the guardrails they need to secure and manage risks associated with GenAI use. Furthermore, this platform gives companies the foundation they need to keep up with the competitive AI marathon ahead.”
“As we continue to see AI grow in popularity and use, my goal is to help companies embrace and accelerate the competitive promise of generative AI throughout the enterprise by allowing full visibility into their infrastructure.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Raman reflected:
“I have two favorite memories of working for the company so far. The first one goes back to the company’s inception when my then-14-year-old daughter decided to help me with the algorithms and became a co-founder. I was so proud of how fearless they were and also delighted that I would have their company as I began this journey.”
“My second favorite memory came a little while later when several of my colleagues, with whom I did a startup over 20 years ago, decided to take the leap to join me. Once again, I was overjoyed both on a personal and professional level because this meant that first, I would have some of the most talented individuals in the valley beside me. And second, our friendship stood the test of time.”
“People are the best part of working at any company and this one is no different. I am blessed and fortunate to have wonderful and talented individuals beside me at Portal26.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have you faced in building the company, and has the current macroeconomic climate affected your company)? Raman acknowledged:
“When Portal26 was originally conceived, we intended to focus on the hardest challenges and make strong data security practical and accessible. The idea was to help enterprises keep sensitive data secure even when all other controls were bypassed. However, when we got to our first few customers, we learned that solving hard problems was far from sufficient. For our customers to get value from our solution, they were being forced to run it alongside other solutions that took care of the simpler data security controls. We realized very quickly that forcing customers to run multiple products on the same data was making for a terrible experience.”
“As soon as we saw the reality of our customer’s situation, we immediately added a comprehensive set of other data security controls and went from an encryption-in-use-only platform to a converged solution that provides customers with all the security and privacy controls they need in a single platform. This early lesson was pivotal in taking us from a niche solution to a recognized data security platform player recognized by major analysts and industry leaders.”
“Currently, we are working to build our brand recognition in the AI space as well. We are pushing to get involved with key analysts and enhancing awareness around how companies need visibility into their GenAI usage and AI infrastructure.”
Evolution Of Portal26’s Technology
How has the Portal26’s technology evolved since launching? Raman noted:
“Since we’ve launched, keeping up with current and future customer needs has always been a key part of our growth. So, of course, we’ve paid heavy attention to the recent innovations in AI and GenAI. Many enterprises have embarked on a journey to build and train internal AI models to aid in business decisions and workflows, as well as adopt external AIs to improve employee productivity.”
“While the gains from AI-powered business are tremendous, AI without controls poses serious risks. Portal26 is now working to ensure that AI is both built and used responsibly.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Raman explained:
“Portal26 offers the industry’s most comprehensive AI Trust, Risk, and Security Management (AI TRiSM) Platform covering both Responsible Usage and Responsible Creation of AI in four distinct offerings:
1.) GenAI Visibility and Governance Platform: Provides visibility and insight into AIs being used, who is using them, prompts analytics and training, GenAI policy and risk management, and data security as well as privacy enforcement.
2.) AI Model Training: An encrypted analytic vault and data privacy service that ensures that sensitive training data can be manipulated without risk of data loss or privacy exposure, per the MITRE Adversarial Threat Landscape for Artificial-Intelligence Systems (ATLAS) framework.
3.) AI Cloud Repository Security: Ensures that cloud object stores on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google, and Oracle cannot be attacked in accordance with the MITRE ATLAS framework.
4.) Securing Vector Search: Portal26 offers a plugin for vector databases such as Elasticsearch and OpenSearch to ensure that these do not present any data security or privacy risks. This is especially important for companies building models on private or sensitive data.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Raman noted:
“Portal26 has been recognized by various analysts and awards over the last year, which has come with great visibility and recognition in the industry. Just this year alone, Portal26 was announced as a Gold Winner of the 2023 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards as one of the Most Innovative Cybersecurity Companies, we were recognized in the Fortress Cybersecurity awards and we were named one of CRN’s tech innovators under Data Protection, Backup and Recovery Software.”
“Last year, Portal26 won four Global Infosec Awards, RSAC, and the SINET16 Innovator award given by 115 F500 CISOs. Portal26’s CEO was named 2022 Tech Trailblazer of the Year, the 2022 TITAN Awards Female CEO of the Year, and the 2022 TITAN Awards Female Entrepreneur of the Year.”
“Notably, Portal26 has also been featured in KuppingerCole’s Leadership Compass, Gartner Cool Vendor as well as Hype Cycle Reports, and IDC’s market share reports as well.”
Revenue
After asking Raman about revenue information, she revealed:
“Portal26 is a privately held company, and we do not publish specific revenue metrics. However, we can share that 2022 sales were 10x that of 2021. We are looking forward to a good year in 2023 given how much activity there is for GenAI and how useful our AI TRiSM platform is.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Raman assessed:
“With the current projections for the value created by GenAI being set to $4.4 trillion, according to McKinsey, Portal26 is pursuing a $440 billion opportunity. (Derived from the assumption that visibility and security typically represent 10 percent of spend in any particular domain).”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Raman affirmed:
Portal26 distinguishes itself from the competition in three major ways:
1.) Portal26 has a 9-12 months head start in the AI TRiSM market with new entrants offering a fraction of AI Trust and Risk Management capabilities with its unique offerings mentioned earlier (the GenAI Visibility and Governance Platform, AI model training, the AI cloud repository security, and the securing vector search).
2.) Portal26 has brought a zero-deployment solution to market. This means that Portal26 customers can leverage pre-existing integrations with their existing security vendors, such as Zscaler, and turn on the Portal26 AI TRiSM capability without any additional effort.
3.) Portal26 is the only company to offer an AI solution that covers both responsible creation and responsible usage. Portal26 is also National Institute of Standards and Technology Federal Information Processing Standard (NIST FIPS 140-2) and Systems and Organization Controls 2 (SOC2) certified.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Raman concluded:
“Portal26 intends to solidify its leadership position in the AI TRiSM – AI Trust, Risk, and Security Management space by expanding our offering to include the application of AI to AI governance, insight, and risk management.”
