HiddenLayer, an Austin-based AI Application Security startup, has been named the winner for the Most Promising Early-Stage Startup. The judges liked the way the company offers a comprehensive security platform to protect machine learning models without adding complexity or requiring access to raw data and algorithms.
“There's no player in the market that gives this kind of offering focused completely around machine learning model security,” said the head of data science and analytics at a financial services company with more than 10,000 employees. “There are players in the security space, there are players in model building, deployment, and validation, but there are not many players in model security. I appreciate that HiddenLayer encapsulates the model, looks at the data and variables, and creates that security layer around the model.”
Founded in March 2022, HiddenLayer has the backing of cybersecurity investment firm Ten Eleven Ventures. Their flagship offering, HiddenLayer MLDR, is a first-of-its-kind cybersecurity product that monitors and responds to Adversarial Machine Learning attacks.
The company has a strong customer base, with more than 50 commercial and government accounts in various stages of the sales funnel. HiddenLayer has raised $6 million in seed funding, with 1011 Partners as its largest external investor.
