Mindgard, a DeepTech startup specialising in security for AI, has raised £22 million in funding as it eyes further expansion in the United States.
The Lancaster University spinout is now headquartered in London and Boston in the US.
The company claims to have created the first platform that successfully captures and exploits the newly discovered psycho-technical attack surface manifesting within AI models, agents and applications. It says its technology has discovered over 150 publicly disclosed high-impact vulnerabilities in AI applications including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google and Cursor.
The Series A financing was led by Album VC with participation from Karma Ventures and existing investors .406 Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, IQ Capital and Lakestar.
“AI is creating an entirely new attack surface and organisations need a fundamentally different approach to securing it,” said James Brear, CEO of Mindgard.
“We don’t just automate attacks. We operationalise expertise, turning the knowledge of leading AI security researchers and offensive security practitioners into the capabilities every enterprise needs to secure their AI.
“This investment will expand our global reach and help make attacker-driven AI security a core part of how organisations implement and manage AI.”
The Series A follows accelerated deployment of Mindgard within a large number of the Fortune 2000 and AI innovators across financial services, pharmaceuticals, gaming, digital services, semiconductors and healthcare.
“Organisations are moving AI into critical operations without security infrastructure designed for how these systems operate in practice,” said Ty Boswell, partner at Album VC.
“Mindgard has translated deep research and elite offensive-security expertise into a continuously evolving capability that enables enterprises to stay ahead of emerging AI threats. We believe this team can define the AI security category.”
Kristjan Laanemaa, founding partner at Karma Ventures, added: “AI security is an emerging category and Mindgard stands out as one of the names to watch.
“Its technology is built on world-class offensive security research, combining automated reconnaissance with smart penetration testing. Crucially, it’s already proven in production – some of the most demanding F2000 enterprises rely on it to safeguard their AI systems.
“That combination of a defensible research moat and proven enterprise pull is rare. We’re proud to support James, Peter, and the team in defining this category.”