Protopia AI Closes $6Million Seed Round to Expand Access to Real Data Needed to Power AI for Enterprises

• ATX Venture Partners led the round; Galaxy Interactive, Silverton Partners and DNX Ventures also participated

• Protopia AI helps enterprises maximize value from their real data using AI/ML with a novel privacy-enhancing layer that ensures raw sensitive data is never exposed to AI, but the AI still gets everything it needs

• Protopia AI will use the funding to further build out engineering teams go-to-market efforts, as well as advance product features

Protopia AI, a company that helps enterprises fully leverage their AI data, announced its $6 million seed funding round led by ATX Venture Partners. Protopia AI solves a significant problem in the space: the inability of enterprises to access key data needed for their artificial intelligence models because of data protection policies. An AI Gartner report on CEOs found that the top barrier to AI implementation is data accessibility, making it difficult for enterprises to deploy AI initiatives.

Recommended AI News: A Bad Customer Experience Is Worse Than Shipment Delays, Say 76% Of Americans

“No other software company in the market is offering a solution with privacy in mind, at all stages of the ML lifecycle, including deployment, in mind from inception. We have a shared vision for maximal data protection and are pleased to fund the company at this critical growth stage.”

Additional investors in the round included Galaxy Interactive, Silverton Partners and DNX Ventures. Protopia has raised a total of $8 million, which includes an initial $2 million pre-seed round. All existing investors extended their commitment by participating in the new round.

Protopia AI has developed a software-only solution that enables its customers to use AI and machine learning to extract insights from their actual data without exposing sensitive information in identifiable form. Its Stained Glass Transform solution adds a new layer of protection against leakage of sensitive information for any data type — visual, text or tabular –– and can be applied throughout the ML lifecycle: training and inference. Protopia AI also provides a demo anyone can try out.

The core technology is based on inventions by Professor Hadi Esmaeilzadeh, endowed chair of computer architecture at the University of California San Diego, who is also Protopia AI’s co-founder and chief technology officer. Other providers in the space either focus solely on the training phase, which leaves the need for protecting sensitive information in deployment data unanswered, or require specialized hardware or new ML paradigms that makes them difficult to use.

“We are at an inflection point where AI has unprecedented capabilities — but at the cost of losing the control and ownership of data,” Esmaeilzadeh said. “Protopia AI is the vision to enable practical AI without losing the control/ownership of data.”

Recommended AI News: Blackline Safety Acquires IoT Expert Swift Labs to Expand Connected Worker Portfolio

Funds raised from the round will be used to build out engineering teams and advance the product. The company is currently beta-testing its product across industries where data sensitivity causes the most operational slowdowns, including financial services, government and health care.

“Protopia AI empowers enterprises to extract maximal value using AI and machine learning from their data by providing the governance and protection that is necessary,” said Eiman Ebrahimi, Protopia AI co-founder and CEO.

Solving the Dilemma of Not Being Able to Access All Enterprise Data

Today, companies are looking to create real value from their data using AI and ML. They frequently are blocked or slowed down by data-sensitivity issues. According to a Seagate Technology and IDC survey, respondents estimated their organizations collect only 56% of their operational data. Out of that 56%, 43% of data remains unused. Protopia AI solves this dilemma with its easy-to-use Stained Glass Transform™ that enables the operation of AI and ML while removing the need to access the company’s data in identifiable form.

Protopia AI’s industry-unique solution works alongside existing data-protection and encryption solutions. Stained Glass Transform does not require a new platform or new hardware to be used, and operates with minimal intrusiveness to existing ML processes. Protopia’s Stained Glass Transform can be applied with little overhead in the data pipeline at the edge, on-premises or in cloud-data platforms, and complements the latest security features the underlying hardware provides.

Recommended AI News: Emerge Partners With TRIPP to Pioneer Tactile Meditation and Human Connection Within the Metaverse

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]