Seattle-based cybersecurity company Protect AI has picked up a roughly 8,000-square-foot office at the 2+U tower downtown.
The company moved into its new space at the start of November, according to a Protect AI spokesperson. Protect AI had been working out of a WeWork downtown close to 2+U prior to the move, the spokesperson added, and the company now has 35 employees.
Protect AI said it plans to expand the new space as the company grows but didn't disclose whether the company subleased the space from a previous tenant or if it's a new lease.
Protect AI launched out of stealth in December of last year, when the company raised a $13.5 million seed round. Protect AI had 15 employees at the time of the seed round. The company followed that with a $35 million Series A round in July.
"Seattle just makes a ton of sense for this company," Protect AI co-founder and CEO Ian Swanson said last year. "Number one is just the incredible talent that is here in enterprise software. Number two, it's really about our partnerships with the clouds. The clouds are massive leaders as it relates to AI and machine learning products and services."
Protect AI is focused on security for machine learning and AI. Swanson previously told the Business Journal this tech can have at-risk code or expose personally identifiable information, and traditional cybersecurity solutions aren't sufficient. The company also has offices in Dallas and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Swanson also founded the gaming payments company Sometrics, which was acquired by American Express for $30 million in 2011. He also founded the data science platform DataScience.com, which was acquired in 2018 by Oracle for an undisclosed amount.
Protect AI co-founder and chief technology officer Badar Ahmed spent close to four years at DataScience.com, where his final role was director of engineering, according to his LinkedIn page. He spent more than three years at Oracle as director of engineering after that.
Protect AI's investors include Evolution Equity Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Acrew Capital, Boldstart Ventures, Knollwood Capital, Avisio Ventures and Pelion Ventures.
