Lafayette-based Prediction Guard secures $3.7M in seed funding for AI platform
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Lafayette-based tech startup Prediction Guard has closed on an oversubscribed $3.7 million seed funding round, the company announced this month.
Founded in 2023, Prediction Guard has developed a private generative artificial intelligence platform designed for companies in regulated industries or those with particularly sensitive security needs.
“These companies…might have very sensitive tiers of data associated with their IP or very confidential information or things that are regulated that can’t go outside of their infrastructure,” Prediction Guard CEO Daniel Whiteack said. “So they need to bring the AI inside and run it in a secure, private way.”
The funding round was led by Atlanta, Georgia-based Sovereign Capital, with participation from nearly a dozen other investors, including Chicago-based M25, Flywheel Fund in Bloomington, and Blu Ventures in Virginia, as well as “key strategic angels.”
Whitenack said the startup was aiming for a $3 million raise, and they noticed something interesting as they were going through the funding round.
“People are getting more sophisticated about how they understand AI systems and how their data is treated or mistreated by AI companies,” he said. “So they’re wanting to, one, really scale up their AI adoption, and two, be smart about the way that they think about data security and privacy as they do that. So I think it’s really good timing in that respect, and a lot of momentum built up as we were doing the raise.”
Prediction Guard said the investment will fuel the company’s growth and enable expansion of its product adoption. Since launching its platform in July 2023, the company has secured 18 customers in various industries, including health care, defense, transportation and manufacturing.
“If you think of all of those verticals, they all kind of intersect with some sort of regulation or process, something that’s sort of very private or security sensitive,” Whitenack said.
Prediction Guard was launched at the Matchbox Coworking Studio in Lafayette and has since graduated to its own space in the city. The startup, which currently has eight employees, plans to use the seed funding to accelerate its go-to-market team by adding a small number of sales and marketing jobs.
Whitenack said he hopes the seed round will help carry the company for the next 18 months or so as it works toward a Series A funding round.
Looking long-term, Whitenack said he wants to see Prediction Guard’s platform serve as a cultural driver for restoring trust in human institutions.
“We’re an AI company, but companies that are adopting AI, unfortunately, are eroding a lot of trust in their organizations because of the way data is treated, the lack of transparency, the security privacy issues,” he said. “So I really want to see the product gain enough steam, gain enough market share that we do can make a sizable impact on that element of restoring trust. I think product wise, we’re in a really strong place, because we have a really strong infrastructure base.”