- Croatian startup SplxAI helps companies protect AI chatbots from cyberattacks.
- The company secured $2m in funding from investors including Inovo.vc, South Central Ventures, and Runtime Ventures.
- SplxAI aims to address major security vulnerabilities in conversational AI, used by over 1.5 billion people globally.
SplxAI has developed an advanced security platform called Probe, designed to detect vulnerabilities in chatbot systems before cyberattacks can exploit them, Sky News reported.
Angel investors, including BetterCloud founder David Politis and Elad Schulman, whose company Segasec was acquired by Mimecast, also backed SplxAI in its pre-seed round.
As AI chatbots have surged in use, securing them has become increasingly crucial, with many large companies now relying on chatbots to replace large customer service teams, despite mixed results in their effectiveness.
“I’ve never seen such strong support from AI founders, data scientists, and cybersecurity pros. The problem is clear, the need is massive, and the timing is now. SplxAI’s platform is truly the “shovel” in the enterprise AI gold rush,” Karol Lasota, principal at Inovo.vc, one of the investors in the latest round, shared in a LinkedIn post.
Jure Mikuž, Managing Partner at South Central Ventures, explained to Sky News that in GenAI-powered industries, cybersecurity tools play a crucial role in protecting sensitive data from rapidly evolving cyber threats, ensuring the security of innovation.
SplxAI recently identified content bias vulnerabilities in an IKEA AI assistant, which showed ethnic bias in its responses, posing a risk of reputational damage and loss of customer trust.
The company was founded by Kristian Kamber, a sales executive, and Ante Gojsalic, an AI consultant. Kamber, SplxAI’s CEO, highlighted the paradigm shift in generative AI security, stressing the increasing need for continuous, proactive systems to monitor conversational AI as it becomes integral to business operations and customer interactions.
Research indicates that the market for generative AI security products is expected to grow from $7 billion this year to $40 billion by 2030. SplxAI plans to use its new funding to accelerate product development and expand its workforce and operations, particularly in the US.
“It blew me away when they showed how they’re able to crack the chatbot of a well-funded US company. They were able to extract sensitive data within minutes. That demonstration was a wake-up call: the vulnerabilities in AI systems are not just theoretical; they’re real and urgent,” Lasota further explained.
