Protect AI, a Seattle, WA-based cybersecurity company focused on the security of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, raised $13.5M in Seed funding.
The round was co-led by Acrew Capital and boldstart ventures, with participation from Knollwood Capital, Pelion Ventures, Avisio Ventures, Shlomo Kramer, Nir Polak, and Dimitri Sirota. Mark Kraynak, founding partner, Acrew Capital, and Ed Sim, founder of Boldstart, joined the Protect AI Board of Directors.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate growth, expand operations and its business reach.
Led by CEO Ian Swanson, Protect AI is a cybersecurity company focused on the security of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. The company’s first product, NB Defense, addresses vulnerabilities in a core component used at the beginning of the machine learning supply chain – Jupyter Notebooks.
NB Defense security scans of a notebook check for:
- Common vulnerabilities and exposures in ML open-source frameworks, libraries, and packages
- Authentication tokens and other credentials over a host of services and products
- Non permissive licenses in ML open source frameworks, libraries, and packages
- Sensitive data and personally identifiable information
NB Defense is available today under a free license. Users can easily install NB Defense and use the JupyterLab Extension or Command Line Interface (CLI). The product was also designed to be embedded in ML development workflows with pre-commit hook support that allows a user to run a scan before any changes enter a repository. NB Defense security scans can also be scheduled via GitHub Action or any other CI/CD process.