HiddenLayer vs Protect AI

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.

Protect AI was a Seattle AI security company founded in 2022 by Ian Swanson (CEO), Daryan Dehghanpisheh and Badar Ahmed, who had previously worked at AWS, Oracle and DataScience.com. It raised $108.5 million: a $13.5 million seed round co-led by Acrew Capital and Boldstart Ventures (December 2022), a $35 million Series A led by Evolution Equity Partners (July 2023) and a $60 million Series B led by Evolution Equity Partners (August 2024), with Salesforce Ventures and Samsung among the investors. GeekWire reported 75 employees and offices in Seattle, Berlin and Bangalore in August 2024. Protect AI bought huntr, Rebuff, Laiyer AI and SydeLabs. Palo Alto Networks announced its intent to acquire Protect AI on April 28, 2025, the same day it launched Prisma AIRS, and completed the deal on July 22, 2025. It did not disclose the price; SiliconANGLE cited GeekWire sources putting it above $500 million. Ian Swanson joined Palo Alto as VP, Product, Prisma AIRS, and Prisma AIRS 2.0 (October 28, 2025) "completes the native integration" of Protect AI. Protect AI is no longer sold separately: protectai.com now redirects to the Prisma AIRS page, although some old blog posts are still online. Buyers should evaluate Prisma AIRS. **What it sold** Protect AI sold AI security, not governance. Guardian, built on its open-source ModelScan tool, scanned machine learning models for unsafe or malicious code and enforced policies on which models could be used. In October 2024 Hugging Face added the Guardian scanner to its Hub, and by April 2025 Protect AI had scanned 4.47 million model versions there. Recon tested AI applications before deployment with a library of 450 simulated attacks, and Layer filtered malicious prompts in production. Its earlier AI Radar product built a machine learning bill of materials. The huntr community, with more than 15,000 members in August 2024, reported AI and ML vulnerabilities. Palo Alto says the deal brought model scanning, posture management, AI red teaming, runtime protection and AI agent security to Prisma AIRS, but it doesn't map each Protect AI product to a Prisma AIRS module. **Open source** LLM Guard, Protect AI's open-source library for scanning prompts and responses, is archived: its README says the project and its Hugging Face models are no longer developed or maintained. **Frameworks** The Protect AI pages still online don't document a mapping to an AI framework, so this profile lists none. Prisma AIRS maps its AI Red Teaming attacks to the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, MITRE ATLAS and NIST.