News Summary

British university spinoff Mindgard, focused on AI security, has secured an $8 million funding round led by Boston-based .406 Ventures, with participation from Atlantic Bridge, WillowTree Investments, and existing investors IQ Capital and Lakestar. This follows an earlier £3 million seed round. Mindgard’s innovative approach involves Dynamic Application Security Testing for AI (DAST-AI), which targets vulnerabilities detected during runtime. The company, leveraging its strong ties with Lancaster University, automatically owns the intellectual property of 18 doctorate researchers’ work, enhancing its research capabilities. With this funding, Mindgard aims to expand its team, product development, and operations into the U.S., while maintaining its R&D and engineering efforts in London. Mindgard’s SaaS platform is utilized by enterprises, traditional red teamers, pen testers, and AI startups to ensure AI risk prevention. The company is poised to address the growing security challenges as AI becomes more widespread.