Artificial Intelligence

DynamoFL Raises $15.1M Series A to Scale Privacy-Focused Generative AI for the Enterprise

Published

9 months ago

August 16, 2023

Canapi Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners lead round to help company meet demand for LLM solutions that can safely train on sensitive, internal data
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — DynamoFL, Inc. today announced that it has closed a $15.1 million Series A funding round to meet demand for its privacy- and compliance-focused generative AI solutions. Coming off a $4.2M seed round, the company has raised $19.3M to date. DynamoFL’s flagship technology, which allows customers to safely train Large Language Models (LLM) on sensitive internal data, is already in use by Fortune 500 companies in finance, electronics, insurance and automotive sectors.
The round, co-led by Canapi Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners, also had participation from Formus Capital, Soma Capital and angel investors Vojtech Jina, Apple’s privacy-preserving machine learning (ML) lead, Tolga Erbay, Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance at Dropbox and Charu Jangid, product leader at Snowflake, to name a few.
The need for AI solutions that preserve compliance and security has never been greater. LLMs present unprecedented privacy and compliance risks for enterprises. It has been widely shown that LLMs can easily memorize sensitive data from its training dataset. Malicious actors can exploit this vulnerability to extract sensitive users’ personally identifiable information and sensitive contract values with carefully designed prompts, posing a major data security risk for the enterprise. The pace of innovation and adoption in the AI sector is punctuated by the rapidly changing global regulatory landscape, many of which require that enterprises detail these data risks, but enterprises today are not equipped to detect and address the risk of data leakage. In the EU, the GDPR and the impending EU AI act, along with similar initiatives in China and India, as well as AI regulation acts in the US, require that enterprises detail these data risks. However, today they are not equipped to detect and address the risk of data leakage.
More clearly needs to be done. As government agencies like the FTC explore concerns around LLM providers’ data security, DynamoFL’s machine learning privacy research team recently showed how personal information – including sensitive details about C-Suite executives, Fortune 500 corporations, and private contract values – could be easily extracted from a fine-tuned GPT-3 model. DynamoFL’s privacy evaluation suite provides out of the box testing for data extraction vulnerabilities and automated documentation to ensure enterprises’ LLMs are secure and compliant.
“We deploy our suite of privacy-preserving training and testing offerings to directly address and document compliance requirements to help enterprises stay on top of regulatory developments, and deploy LLMs in a safe and compliant manner,” said DynamoFL co-founder Christian Lau.
“Privacy and compliance are critical to ensuring the safe deployment of AI across the enterprise. These are foundational pillars of the DynamoFL platform,” said Greg Thome, Principal at Canapi. “By working with DynamoFL, companies can deliver best-in-class AI experiences while mitigating the well-documented data leakage risks. We’re excited to support DynamoFL as they scale the product and expand their team of privacy-focused machine learning engineers.”
The company’s solutions help organizations privately fine-tune LLMs on internal data while identifying and documenting potential privacy risks. Organizations can choose to implement DynamoFL’s end-to-end suite or to implement their Privacy Evaluation Suite, Differential Privacy and/or Federated Learning modules individually.
DynamoFL was founded by two MIT PhDs who have spent the last six years researching the cutting-edge, privacy-focused AI and ML technology forming the basis of the company’s core offerings. The team balances expertise in the latest research in privacy-preserving ML, with researchers and engineers from MIT, Harvard and Cal-Berkeley, and experience in deploying enterprise-grade AI applications for Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Palantir, among other top tech companies.
“This investment validates our philosophy that AI platforms need to be built with a focus on privacy and security from day one in order to scale in enterprise use cases,” said DynamoFL CEO and co-founder Vaikkunth Mugunthan. “It also reflects the growing interest and demand for in-house Generative AI solutions across industries.”
“While AI holds tremendous potential to transform every industry, the need of the hour is to ensure that AI is safe and trustworthy. DynamoFL is set to do just that and enable enterprises to adopt AI while preserving privacy and remaining regulation-compliant,” said Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners.”We are thrilled to have partnered with Vaik, Christian and team in their journey of building an impactful company.”
About DynamoFL, Inc.DynamoFL is the world’s leading enterprise solution for privacy-preserving Generative AI. At DynamoFL we believe that prioritizing privacy, compliance and data security from day 1 while building Generative AI applications is the only way to responsibly scale AI and use it to augment human potential beyond what was thought possible. Our proprietary technology encapsulates state of the art optimization techniques for training and deploying Generative AI models along with a robust privacy training and evaluation suite incorporating paradigms like Federated Learning and Differential privacy to bring high performing end-to-end plug-and-play Generative AI to global enterprises.
About Nexus Venture PartnersFounded in 2006, Nexus Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that supports extraordinary founders in building product-first companies. The firm takes a high-conviction approach, serving as inception, seed, or series-A stage partner to founders, actively engaging with them throughout the company lifecycle. With $2.6 billion capital under management, Nexus focuses on two primary investment areas: enterprise software and AI companies globally and technology-powered businesses within India. For more information, visit https://nexusvp.com/
About Canapi VenturesCanapi Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage fintech companies. Our partners have been at the forefront of financial services innovation as operators, investors, bankers, advisors, and regulators. Our venture capital model connects high-quality fintech companies to our extensive network of banks and strategic partners. Canapi Ventures is advised by CenterHarbor Advisors and Canapi Advisors, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Live Oak Bancshares, Inc. (Nasdaq: LOB). For more information, visit http://www.canapi.com.
Media ContactsInkhouse for Canapi [email protected]
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Artificial Intelligence

Red light therapy for repairing spinal cord injury passes milestone

Published

55 mins ago

May 6, 2024

CISION (PR Newswire)

red-light-therapy-for-repairing-spinal-cord-injury-passes-milestone

BIRMINGHAM, England, May 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) could benefit from future treatment to repair nerve connections using red and near-infrared light.

The method, invented by University of Birmingham scientists and patented by University of Birmingham Enterprise, delivers light directly to the site of the injury.
Their latest research, published in Bioengineering and Translational Medicine, determined an optimal ‘dose’ for this novel approach, and showed it can deliver therapeutic improvements including significant restoration of sensation and movement, and regeneration of damaged nerve cells.
Researchers led by Professor Zubair Ahmed used cell models of SCI to determine the frequency and duration of light required to achieve maximum restoration of function and stimulate nerve cell regrowth.
They found delivery at a wavelength of 660nm for one minute a day increased cell viability (the number of live cells) by 45% over five days’ treatment.
Professor Ahmed said: “The effect of 660nm light was both neuroprotective, meaning it improved survival of nerve cells, and neuroregenerative, meaning it stimulated nerve cell growth.”
The researchers also investigated the effect of light therapy in preclinical models of SCI, using an implantable device and transcutaneous delivery with the light source placed against the skin. They showed comparable results for both methods, with a one-minute dose of 660nm light, delivered daily for seven days resulting in reduced tissue scarring, increased levels of proteins associated with nerve cell regeneration, improvements in the connections between cells and significant functional recovery.
This is the first time transcutaneous and direct light delivery have been compared in SCI. Professor Ahmed said: “To make light therapy viable for treating SCI in humans an implantable device will be required, to provide line of sight to damaged tissue and the opportunity for greater accuracy and standardise dosing without impedance due to the thickness of the skin and other tissues surrounding the spinal cord.”
The researchers are planning to develop an implantable device for use in humans with traumatic SCI. They have already received further funding and are seeking commercial partners or investors to develop a prototype device to take into first-in-man clinical trials.
Full release here.
University of Birmingham Enterprise helps researchers turn ideas into products and services that meet real-world needs. Follow us on LinkedIn and X.
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Media enquiries: Ruth Ashton
Commercial enquiries: Veemal Bhowruth

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Artificial Intelligence

TerraPay Continues to Attract Top Industry Talent, Names Hassan Chatila as Vice President and Global Head of Network

Published

55 mins ago

May 6, 2024

CISION (PR Newswire)

LONDON, May 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — TerraPay, a leading global money movement company, is excited to announce the appointment of Hassan Chatila as Vice President – Global Head of Network.

This key addition to TerraPay’s global network leadership also marks a critical step in the company’s ongoing strategy to simplify and streamline global money movement for businesses and individuals alike, underscoring its commitment to enhancing its network capabilities.
With over 20 years of experience in the cross-border payments, Hassan brings with him a rich legacy of leadership and innovation. Before joining TerraPay, he served as the Global Head of Western Union’s Account Payout Network, where he played a pivotal role in expanding and optimizing the network to support seamless global transactions. His impressive career portfolio also includes key leadership roles at Earthport and Temenos, where he led significant payments transformation initiatives and drove substantial growth.
In this new role at TerraPay, Hassan will lead the expansion and optimization of TerraPay’s global payout network. He will work closely with internal and external stakeholders to enhance the network’s capabilities, ensuring that TerraPay continues to offer its partners transparent and efficient payment solutions.
Welcoming Hassan to the team, TerraPay Founder and CEO, Ambar Sur, said, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome Hassan on board. As an industry expert, he comes with a highly reputable cross-border payment expertise and deep leadership experience. On TerraPay’s journey of growth, Hassan’s appointment is a critical step in furthering our network expansion goals. I look forward to working together and further deepen TerraPay’s position as a global money movement leader.”
Hassan Chatila, VP – Global Head of Network, TerraPay, commented on his new role, saying, “I am thrilled to join TerraPay at this pivotal time. Over the years, TerraPay has built an expansive global money movement network driven by the mission to build a borderless world of payments. I look forward to leveraging my experience to further develop our network capabilities, create new opportunities across markets and help TerraPay achieve its ambitious goals.”
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]
About TerraPay
TerraPay simplifies global money movement – by providing a single connection to the most expansive cross-border payments network regulated in 31 global markets and enabling payments to 144 receive countries, 210+ send countries, 7.5Bn+ bank accounts and 2.1Bn+ mobile wallets. TerraPay is on a mission to connect a borderless financial world, making moving money everywhere instant, reliable, transparent and fully compliant. TerraPay pushes the boundaries for global businesses – ranging from banks, fintechs and money-transfer operators to travel businesses, creator economy platforms and e-commerce marketplaces – while driving financial inclusion in even the most inaccessible markets. Founded in 2014, TerraPay is headquartered in London, with global offices in Bangalore, Dubai, Miami, Bogota, Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Hague, Dakar, Joburg, Nairobi, Milan, Singapore and is expanding rapidly, having received funding from leading investors, including the IFC (the World Bank), Prime Ventures, Partech Africa and Visa.
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Artificial Intelligence

Aareon invests up to €100m in AI-powered proptech Stonal

Published

3 hours ago

May 6, 2024

CISION (PR Newswire)

aareon-invests-up-to-e100m-in-ai-powered-proptech-stonal

PARIS, May 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Stonal, the leading data management platform for real estate owners and investors in Europe, has announced a strategic investment by Aareon, Europe’s trusted provider of SaaS solutions for the property industry, to accelerate its European expansion.

Founded in 2017 by Michel Tolila, the current executive chairman, and Jean-Maurice Oudot, Stonal’s mission is to deliver data quality at scale for asset owners and investors. Its collaborative AI-powered platform extracts information from documents and blueprints, creating an accurate and up-to-date database on buildings open to stakeholders such as property managers, surveyors, and insurers. Its decision-making modules offer ESG reporting and CapEx planning to increase returns, improve productivity and preserve value.
Since its inception, the company has quickly expanded into residential and commercial real estate. In early 2024, Stonal launched its proprietary StonalGPT, the first generative artificial intelligence solution designed for real estate owners and investors, establishing itself as one of the pioneers in this field.
Robin Rivaton, CEO of Stonal: “The real estate industry, both residential and commercial, is at a crossroads. AI is a massive opportunity to reshape the sector in a remarkable way, but it still requires a significant amount of data on which to train these systems. Thanks to the strategic partnership with Aareon we will reach such a scale and accelerate our European expansion.”
Aareon is the trusted provider of SaaS solutions for the European property industry. With locations across France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, Aareon serves 13,000 customers totalling 18 million units.
Harry Thomsen, CEO of Aareon: “Investing in Stonal is a strategic step to strengthen our “Aareon Sustain” product portfolio and amplify our proficiency in AI technology across the Aareon Group. With an expected uptick in the need for robust data management solutions, this collaboration not only reinforces the existing partnership between Stonal and Aareon in France but also equips us to meet our customers’ needs and deliver unrivalled innovation and operational excellence.”
Aareon’s investment in Stonal reflects the growing appetite of the real estate sector for technological solutions that enable it to address the major challenges it faces, applying to both larger companies and smaller ones. Expanding ESG expectations, increased CapEx for greener properties, stringent building safety regulations, higher vacancy due to remote work for offices, all converge in the context of high interest rates. The capacity to evaluate risks and make well-informed decisions promptly is now more crucial than ever.
Stonal was advised on this deal by Lazard, Aareon by Vulcain.
About StonalFounded in 2017, Stonal is the leading data management platform for real estate owners and investors in Europe. It helps more than 130 clients, REITs, insurers, housing organisations, asset managers, family offices, to manage a combined portfolio of more than 200 million sqm (including 1.6 million housing units) across all Europe. With 150 employees, Stonal is present in France and the UK.
Contact: Perrine ABRARD, Stonal CMO [email protected]
About AareonAareon is Europe’s trusted provider of SaaS solutions for the property industry, leading the charge towards a digital future. Passionately committed to connecting people, process, and property, Aareon brings the ecosystem closer together. Our Property Management System, powered by smart software solutions, promotes efficient property management and maintenance, enabling superior digital experiences for everyone involved. In our continuous pursuit of innovation, Aareon remains the industry’s reliable partner, inspiring positive change for sustainable spaces for all.
With a dedicated team of around 2,000 professionals, Aareon achieved pro forma revenues of €410 million and a pro forma Adjusted EBITDA of €137 million in 2023.
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