Credo AI vs Protect AI

Credo AI is an AI governance platform founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco. The platform helps enterprises operationalize AI governance through a centralized model registry, guided impact assessments, policy packs mapped to regulations like the EU AI Act and NIST AI RMF, and evidence collection for audit. Credo AI has been cited as an NIST AI RMF contributor and has raised approximately $41.3M total, with a $21M round in July 2024 at a reported $101M post-money valuation.

Protect AI was a Seattle-based MLSecOps company founded in 2022 by Ian Swanson, Daryan Dehghanpisheh, and Badar Ahmed that built a comprehensive AI and ML security platform. The platform comprised three main products — Guardian (model scanning and supply-chain security), Recon (AI red teaming), and Layer (runtime monitoring) — operating on a unified platform. The company was backed by 17,000+ security researchers via its huntr community and partnered with Hugging Face on threat research. Protect AI was acquired by Palo Alto Networks on July 22, 2025 and its technology has been integrated into Prisma AIRS (AI Runtime Security), Palo Alto's comprehensive AI security platform. Prior to acquisition the company had raised $108.5M total ($14M seed in December 2022, $35M Series A in July 2023, $60M Series B in August 2024), all led by Evolution Equity Partners.