Customers include the US Air Force and Navy

Calypso AI, a startup that provides testing, monitoring and risk management for AI applications in national security and highly-regulated industries, raised $13 million in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Paladin Capital Group with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, 8VC, Frontline Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Manta Ray Ventures, and Pallas Ventures.

The funds will be spent on global expansion, and on increasing enterprise adoption.

De-risking AI

Calypso AI, founded by DoD and DARPA veterans working to accelerate AI applications for national security, focuses on building trust in autonomous systems.

“The founding team’s experience across DoD, DARPA, and world class cyber security companies is the ideal blend of talent to deliver their technology platform that solves complex issues for commercial enterprise, critical infrastructure, and government customers,” said Mourad Yesayan, managing director at Paladin, who joins Calypso’s board of directors.

With AI technologies increasingly embedded into mission-critical systems, Calypso specializes in advancing the science being trusted AI, including AI accreditation and defense against adversarial machine learning attacks.

The company’s Vespr software platform gives enterprise teams the ability to validate, monitor, and secure their AI models.

The Build Secure feature of the Vespr platform is aimed at military users, eabling them to rapidly generate data science models either using “traditional code-based modeling systems as well as no-code/low-code environments.”

Calypso says the process allows for the generation of actionable insights in the field.

“We are excited to continue our growth with the backing of Paladin and some of the leading venture firms in the industry,” said Neil Serebryany, founder and CEO of Calypso AI. “Their support allows us to rapidly expand while providing our clients with the solutions to accelerate their adoption of secure, trusted AI.”

Earlier this year, the startup launched Calypso AI Labs, a tailored application and national security workshop in Washington, D.C., to experiment with machine learning research and custom hardware configurations.