Ben Van Roo’s Post

The more I learn about the public sector & AI integration here at XYZ Venture Capital, the clearer it is that Yurts is building *the* platform that will make AI possible in even the most exacting government & defense environments. Really excited to be part of this round 🙌

Our CEO and Founder, Ben Van Roo, discusses the impact of our Series B funding on advancing mission-critical #AI integrations across defense, civilian, and enterprise sectors. 🤖 This funding positions us to drive real-world impact in high-stakes environments, leveraging advanced security and deep operations integration to help organizations see transformative results. 📈 Check out the full blog post: https://lnkd.in/exinKJ-x #AISecurity #TransformativeAIResults

DEFCON AI Raises $44M to Develop AI-Powered Military Response Tech The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Fifth Growth Fund and Red Cell Partners, among others. "At DEFCON AI, we are developing powerful solutions to reshape response planning in contested and disrupted environments," said DEFCON AI Co-Founder and CEO Yisroel Brumer. "Few organizations can take high-end software engineering and artificial intelligence expertise and combine it with a deep understanding of battlefield and defense operational requirements to rapidly deliver the kinds of technology that the DoD needs, the way we can at DEFCON AI," said Gen. (Retired) Paul Selva, a DEFCON AI Co-Founder and its Chief Strategy Officer. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gpEZr4Cs 

🚀 OpenAI Co-Founder’s $1B Bet on Safe Superintelligence: A New Rival in the Race for AGI 💡 Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist, has launched a new venture, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), raising $1 billion in funding from top investors including NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and SV Angel. SSI, co-founded with Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy, aims to advance AI capabilities while prioritizing safety, approaching both as technical challenges to be solved simultaneously. With only 10 employees, SSI plans to use the funds to acquire computing power and recruit top talent, with teams based in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel. Sutskever's vision for SSI is to build "a straight shot to safe superintelligence" by insulating the company from short-term commercial pressures. He emphasizes that safety, security, and progress will be advanced together through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs. While OpenAI and SSI share the goal of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), SSI is focused on creating a single, safe superintelligence product, while OpenAI continues to develop multiple commercial products on the path to AGI. What are your thoughts on the race to AGI and the emphasis on safety? Let me know in the comments! 👇 #AI #News #AINews #AGI #SSI

2,011 companies are now featured in The 2024 MAD landscape. A collection of Machine Learning, AI & Data companies by Matt Turck. In the 10+ years he’s covered this space… The MAD (ML, AI & Data) ecosystem is shifting to the mainstream. We’re going far beyond technical or even business matters… And now impacting society, geopolitics, and perhaps the human condition. I definitely see this happening among the 578 new entrants to the map. blackshark.ai is one of the recognized additions. As their strategic advisor, we’ve seen how far they’ve come. Creator of the first semantic 3D digital twin of the entire Earth. Use cases for geospatial intelligence, humanitarian relief, and smart cities. Major investments from Microsoft, M12, Point72, and Maxar Technologies. They also gathered top advisors to the board: - Former Airbus Defense and Space CEO Dirk Hoke - Google Earth co-founder Brian McClendon - CEO of Applied Intuition Qasar Younis I see the future of MAD is going to be less about the AI hype. And more about the real applications of deep tech. Full article: https://lnkd.in/e_sqPEZF Full-resolution PDF: https://lnkd.in/e8ZJv7wd #founders #investors #venturecapital #privateequity #startups #i5invest 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 i5invest: We are a corporate development firm with access to 150K+ top decision-makers in Strategy, Business Development, and M&A. We provide innovative tech founders with insights, expertise, and access to our network to take their companies to the next level.

Sounds like a very interesting approach to knowledge management. I can imagine that access to a company confluence would be a good place to start, but can access to various pages of content be delegated to Knostic for JIT access control? Or would that context-aware access be provided on the bot/slack agent level instead of the source system itself?

“Knowledge level controls”? What a concept. (#Semantics -free controls were always a hack dressed in idiosyncratic policy lingo.) #Knostic is one to follow as they tackle challenges posed by LLMs. See also IEEE #CertifAIED.

Knostic is officially out of stealth as we’re named one of the three finalists in the RSAC Launch Pad 2024 competition. Knostic is the world’s first provider of need-to-know access controls for Generative AI. Enterprises are rapidly adopting Large Language Models (LLMs) for search and chatbot use cases, but they are running into a wall. It’s straightforward - Imagine an intern asking about sales revenue, expected layoffs, or M&A due diligence information, only to receive the same answer as the CEO. That’s why AI security and safety start with access control. Knostic ends LLM oversharing. We’re providing business value - not just security. With Knostic, answers are personalized to the employee’s own context so they can see everything they need, but personalized to their own need-to-know boundaries, unlocking the value of LLMs while simultaneously avoiding business harm. So, how did we come up with this idea? In the past, Sounil Yu (my co-founder and Knostic’s CTO) and I relied on system thinking and mental models for inspiration in our work. While exploring how AI could affect the future enterprise, we reached a conceptual breakthrough: The AI security challenge of enabling LLM adoption needs to be addressed through knowledge-level controls, e.g. business context, as opposed to age-old data-based least-privilege capabilities. Since we started five months ago, we have: 🌟 Partnered with 10 design partners from the top leading global brands, all without marketing spend. 💰 Secured $3.3 in pre-seed funding to de-risk the market, technology, and team. 💼 Developed a sales pipeline exceeding $20 million, enabling us to focus our resources on product development. 🛠 Successfully deployed in PoC with two customers, gearing up for GA release end of Q2. 👥 Assembled an extraordinary team that makes us happy to work every day. We would like to thank the RSAC Launch Pad VC panel and judges for the opportunity, and for recognizing the importance of our work in tackling the LMM need-to-know challenge. We can't wait for the journey ahead. We would also like to extend a thank you to our investors: Raj S. & Michael A. Brown (Shield Capital), Yair Cassuto, Sharon E & Aviv Barzilay (Pitango First), Hironobu Maeda & Kris Harms (DNX Ventures), and Reshma Sohoni & Carlos Eduardo Espinal MBE (Seedcamp), as well as angel investors Kevin Patrick Mahaffey (Lookout), David B. Cross (Rain Capital), Bryson Bort (SCYTHE), Travis McPeak (Resourcely), Matthew Honea (Forward Networks), and others. #informationsecurity #riskmanagement #RSAC #startup #launch #Cybersecurity #DataScience #Security #LargeLanguageModel #LargeLanguageModels #LLMSecurity #aisecurity #aidevelopment #genai #generativeai #artificialintelligence #hacking #cyber #copilot https://lnkd.in/dw-znYMK

Here we go! We are super excited to have been accepted into the NVIDIA Inception program. By joining the program, our team will be able to push the boundaries of what's possible when combining human expertise with #AI even further. We're not just building another basic AI assistant; we're creating an AI-first ecosystem that will redefine how data practitioners work. "Big words", some might say, but that doesn't make them less true. As the only AI-powered dbt™ platform for analytics teams, our goal has always been to help organizations unlock the power of dbt™ 10x. Not to brag, but since launching #DinoAI back in 2023, we've kind of been changing how analytics teams get things done. Okay, we are bragging. Sorry not sorry 😉 👉 https://lnkd.in/gNmN6fsZ #NVIDIAInception #analyticsengineering #dbt #startup

🌐 Exciting times for AI and defense! Sam Altman of OpenAI and Marc Andreessen have been instrumental in ensuring the survival and expansion of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), fostering crucial tech-military collaborations. This strategic move not only preserves a critical bridge between Silicon Valley's innovation and the Pentagon's needs but also underscores the transformative role AI can play in national defense. 🚀 Discover more about how these partnerships are advancing U.S. defense capabilities and driving forward tech adoption in areas that matter: https://lnkd.in/gRnrYbfF #AI #DefenseInnovation