Europe’s venture capital firm Atomico has helped the Swiss AI developer Lakera raise over C$27 million to propel its large language model (LLM) security tech.
The startup, founded in 2021, revealed that its Series A funding round had been completed on Jul. 24. New York’s Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C), Dropbox Inc (Nasdaq: DBX) and Lakera stakeholders like Switzerland’s redalpine helped raise funds from investors too.
“Generative AI introduces new attack methods, including prompt and data poisoning attacks, which can exploit the model to take unintended actions,” Lakera said in a news release.
Users with malicious intent can use certain prompt phrases to trick an LLM into revealing confidential info or make the model behave inappropriately. Lakera was established to solve this problem.
Only AI technology is capable of protecting AI programs from the dangers posed by hackers knowledgeable about AI, the company says.
“Lakera uses proprietary AI to secure AI applications, so our customers stay ahead of continuously evolving threats.”
Former engineers from Meta Platforms Inc (Nasdaq: META) and Google co-founded the tech guru. It has offices in Zurich and San Francisco.
We’re pleased to announce our partnership with Zurich and SF-based @LakeraAI today! Lakera is the world’s leading real-time Generative AI (GenAI) Security company. If you’re building GenAI apps for your business, read more about why you need them here: https://t.co/0yV8QUManU
— Atomico (@atomico) July 24, 2024
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Lakera creates novel wizard game
Gandalf was invented so that people can learn about AI security in a fun way, Lakera says.
In the game, the user tries to get the LLM wizard to reveal a password. There are eight levels, which get progressively harder as Gandalf tightens his grip on the words.
“Gandalf will upgrade the defences after each successful password guess!” Lakera explained. The data pool generated through interactions with the young virtual sorcerer grows immensely every day.
“Our models continuously learn from large amounts of generative AI interactions what malicious interactions look like,” chief executive David Haber told TechCrunch.
Gandalf. Image credit: Lakera
Lakera collaborates with Cohere
Gandalf’s creator has collaborated with a Canadian AI company that just raised nearly C$700 million for its data security initiatives. Cohere will benefit from Lakera’s LLM knowledge while developing its own, such as Rerank 3.
“The team has extensive expertise and deep understanding of complex security challenges,” Cohere safety head Seraphina Goldfarb-Tarrant said.
Generative AI developers in various niches within the AI sector could potentially benefit from Lakera’s innovation. VERSES AI Inc. (CBOE: VERS) (OTCQB: VRSSF), developer of the neuroscience and biology-focused AI program Genius, is one of them.
“Cybersecurity is paramount to fostering a thriving ecosystem of intelligent systems,” VERSES says.
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rowan@mugglehead.com
