Protectt.ai acquires majority stake in Bosch-incubated AIShield
The investment was made through a combination of primary share issuance and a secondary purchase from existing investors.
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Cybersecurity startup Protectt.ai, which is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, has acquired a majority stake in AIShield, an artificial intelligence (AI) security platform incubated at Bosch Global Software Technologies (BGSW).
The investment was made through a combination of primary share issuance and a secondary purchase from existing investors. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
AIShield will operate as an independent company, AI Shield Pvt Ltd, under Protectt.ai, it added.
The investment will support AIShield's product development, research and development (R&D), and global expansion, while enabling the companies to develop sovereign AI security capabilities.
AIShield's platform provides security assessment, red teaming, runtime protection and safety guardrails for AI systems. Its capabilities address AI-specific cybersecurity risks, including prompt injection and vulnerabilities in AI applications. AIShield has more than 40 patent filings, including 11 granted patent families, and serves customers across Europe and the Middle East.
Protectt.ai plans to combine AIShield's capabilities with its existing mobile application security platform and customer relationships, particularly across banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI).
"AI is moving from pilots into production across banking and regulated enterprises, and the security stack has to evolve with it," said Manish Mimani, founder and CEO, Protectt.ai, "AIShield brings a proven platform, a strong engineering team and a deep patent portfolio. Together, Protectt.ai and Bosch aim to build India's first full-stack AI security platform, covering AI for Security, Security for AI and Sovereign AI Security, so enterprises can adopt AI confidently with the resilience and the control it demands," he added.
Protectt.ai, which was founded in 2020 by Mimani and Mohanraj Selvaraj, serves banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), insurers, fintechs and government platforms in India, and has a presence across India, the UAE and the US.
The startup had raised Rs 76 crore in a Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners in March last year.