A Bay Area startup developing artificial intelligence governance software has raised $21 million in fresh capital.
Based in Palo Alto, Credo AI raised the new round from lead investor CrimsoNox Capital, as well as Mozilla Ventures, FPV Ventures, Sands Capital, Decibel VC, Booz Allen Hamilton and AI Fund.
The new cash comes around two years since Credo closed its Series A round and just about doubles its total funding to over $41 million, the company announced on Tuesday.
CEO Navrina Singh co-founded Credo with CTO Eli Chen in 2020 to help companies monitor artificial intelligence systems and automate important processes like regulatory compliance and risk management.
“AI truly is one of those destructive forces that needs a lot of nurturing and accountability and oversight,” Singh told me in 2021. “I am a strong believer that right now it is becoming one of the enterprise priorities, not only because of the board and C-level focus, but because there is such a huge opportunity, as well as unintended consequences. The next frontier on the hallmark of trusted brands is going to be good governance.”
The company can now monitor more than 400 different types of risk factors, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
Its customers include Mastercard, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Growth-stage equity funding rounds have gotten much more difficult to raise over the past couple of years, which I explore in this story about Series B rounds.
But the AI sector continues to boost venture capital deals despite an overall prolonged downturn.
Total funding deals ticked up slightly around the world to $79 billion between April and June, according to a recent Crunchbase report, which represents the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2023 when global venture funding reached just over $83 billion.
AI companies took home 30% of that total funding, around $24 billion, in the second quarter. That's more than double over the first quarter of the year and significantly higher than the previous four consecutive quarters which each clocked under $13 billion in total funding.
