HiddenLayer vs Lakera

HiddenLayer is an Austin, Texas-based AI security company founded in March 2022 by experienced cybersecurity and machine learning professionals. The company provides a comprehensive AI Security Platform covering AI Discovery (automated inventory), AI Supply Chain Security (model scanning for embedded threats), AI Attack Simulation (red teaming), and AI Runtime Security (guardrails and active threat response). The platform is designed to be non-invasive — protecting models without requiring access to raw training data — and integrates with CI/CD, MLOps, data pipelines, and SIEM/SOAR tools. HiddenLayer is recognized by Gartner as a Cool Vendor for AI Application Security. The company raised $50M in Series A in September 2023, the largest Series A for an AI-focused cybersecurity company at that time, led by M12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund) and Moore Strategic Ventures. Customers include enterprises in financial services, US federal government, and technology. Named endorsers include the CISO of the NFL and the former CISO of AIG.

Lakera is a Zurich-based AI security company founded in 2021 by former Google, Meta, and aerospace engineers. The company provides the Lakera Guard platform, which offers real-time prompt injection prevention, data leakage protection, jailbreak detection, and AI agent security for enterprise generative AI deployments. It operates across workforce AI security, AI agent security, and AI red teaming, with sub-50ms runtime latency and a SaaS-first, API-first architecture. Lakera is the creator of Gandalf, a widely used AI security educational game with over 1 million players and 80M+ prompts collected, which provides a continuously updated threat intelligence database. The company is cited in the OWASP LLM and GenAI Security Landscape Guide 2025, recognized as a Representative Vendor in the 2024 Gartner Innovation Guide for Generative AI (TRiSM), and had Lakera's CEO join the World Economic Forum 2024 alongside Yann LeCun and others. Named customers include Dropbox and a top-3 US bank.