TrojAI founders James Stewart and Stephen Goddard. Image: submitted
Saint John-based tech startup TrojAI has closed a $3-million round of seed funding.
The investment was co-led by Seattle investment firm Flying Fish Ventures and Atlantic Canadian VC fund Build Ventures.
TrojAI co-founders James Stewart and Stephen Goddard told Huddle January 4 they were “pleased” with the investment. They said it will help the company grow its team and move from a minimum viable to commercial product this year.
TrojAI is a software company that helps protect artificial intelligence (AI) platforms from hackers.
Its software helps companies secure data and identify, track, and reduce risks to their AI platforms.
With AI is playing an increasingly noticeable and important role in society, keeping it secure is becoming more vital every day.
Think of the software that powers self-driving vehicles, for example. If a malicious actor found their way into that system they could monkey with the AI to keep it from recognizing certain objects.
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Goddard says TrojAI hoped to raise $2-million in seed funding. But investors showed so much interest he and Stewart had to ask a few interested parties to step back.
Investor interest in security solutions for AI platforms is not surprising.
Goddard points out AI is “reorganizing the world as we currently know it,” operating in industries like autonomous vehicles, robotics, medical diagnostics, and more.
The risk of those vital systems being compromised is high and investors are looking for the next leader in the AI security space. Goddard says he and Stewart spent a lot of last year trying to convince them it was TrojAI.
“We’re in a global race. There are probably another six or eight companies around the globe that are in a somewhat similar space,” he said. “As much as they knew that there is a demand for what we’re doing. We spent a lot of time this past year trying to show them that we are one of those global leaders.”
Right now, TrojAI is a little past having a minimum viable product.
The company plans to release a commercial product in the first quarter of this year. That will be a data audit tool that lets firms identify where their AI systems might be vulnerable.
Next, the company will work on fully developing its natural language processing tools, which the seed funding will help finance.
Already, the company has hired four new team members to help with product development. TrojAI is now a team of 12, working out of Saint John.
“We’re standing toe to toe in a global environment… now with the added team, we continue to build that in Atlantic Canada in, I think, I think a pretty impressive way,” Goddard says.
He said one of the last questions his West Coast-based investors asked him before they finalized the deal was if he was confident the and Stewart could build a global company from the East Coast of Canada.
“We were adamant that that’s not a limiting factor to our success. I don’t know if [our location] played a part in the challenge over the last year getting to the finish line with our seed raise, but we did it–and at this point we have no reason to believe that we won’t get to the finish line on the next round,” Goddard said.
“I do think we have the necessary bandwidth and the capability to do something that is on the global stage, and we’re doing it right here in Atlantic Canada.”
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
