The founders of Protect AI (Screenshot captured from Protect AI website)
Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Samsung Electronics Co.’s venture capital firm, has invested in Protect AI Inc., a US startup offering a security platform that protects artificial intelligence applications and machine learning models from security threats.
The Seattle-headquartered startup announced on Thursday that Samsung joined multiple backers such as 01 Advisors and StepStone Group in its Series B funding round, which raised $60 million.
The South Korean tech giant’s investment size was not disclosed.
Protect AI, founded in 2022 by AI experts from Amazon and Oracle, offers an AI security posture management, or AI-SPM, platform designed to help organizations protect their machine learning systems and AI applications from security vulnerabilities and emerging threats.
It was valued at $400 million by Evolution Equity Partners who led the Series B round, which was also participated by existing investors such as Acrew Capital, boldstart ventures, Knollwood Capital, Pelion Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.
Demand for AI-SPM platforms is expected to grow rapidly as organizations across every industry are deploying AI at an accelerating pace but AI systems cannot be protected by incumbent security providers, according to Ian Swanson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Protect AI, on Thursday.
The US startup, which has raised a total of $108.5 million to date, will use the new financing to expand its customer success and sales resources, advance its research and development capabilities and strengthen channel programs for a new leap, it said.
Large corporations and public sector customers use its end-to-end AI security program to project their unique machine learning models and systems, large language models and AI applications, Protect AI said.
Samsung Venture Investment was set up by Samsung Electronics and other Samsung affiliates in 1999.
It has invested in companies – mostly startups – in sectors expected to unlock new opportunities, such as semiconductor, information and communication technology, software, internet and bio.
AI has emerged as its key investment area in recent years driven by the worldwide generative AI sensation.
Last month, the Korean tech giant agreed to buy Oxford Semantic Technologies, a British deep tech startup, to enhance its on-device AI technology.
By Young Chan Song
0full@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.
