SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BeeKeeperAI, Inc., a pioneer in zero-trust, collaboration software for the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), today announced that it has closed $12.1 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Sante Ventures, with participation from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, AIX Ventures, Continuum Health Ventures, TA Group Holdings, and UCSF. The new funding will be used to expand the features of its EscrowAI™ platform as well as broaden commercial operations.
“BeeKeeperAI is poised to drive the adoption of zero-trust, confidential computing capabilities by enabling secure collaboration workflows between AI developers and stewards of privacy protected information,” said Michael Blum, MD, CEO and Co-founder of BeeKeeperAI. “With this funding, we will expand the capabilities of EscrowAI and capitalize on the rising demand for zero-trust computing environments that power AI development. Market forces within healthcare and other regulated data industries, powered by the growing demand for AI solutions, including large language models such as ChatGPT, have created the ideal opportunity for BeeKeeperAI to expand our leadership position in the confidential computing space. There has never been a better time to invest in further development of software-as-a-solution (SaaS) that leverages the secure capabilities of confidential computing.”
BeeKeeperAI™ is addressing the challenges of data sovereignty, security, privacy, and intellectual property (IP) protection as an increasing number of organizations endeavor to build software applications that unlock the power of AI on privacy protected information. Global cybercrime costs are expected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, and no data is more sought after than those from regulated or security industries, including healthcare. Privacy regulations also continue to evolve with stringent requirements and geographical differences, creating the need for zero-trust environments to protect both privacy protected information (PPI) and IP.
“Our investment in BeeKeeperAI evolved out of a multi-year search of identifying companies that we believe could significantly accelerate the adoption of AI in healthcare. We believe their proprietary and patented EscrowAI platform solves a major problem for both healthcare data stewards and AI solution providers and can significantly streamline data partnership and collaboration timelines. We are pleased to lead this financing round and support BeeKeeperAI's work in providing zero-trust workflow solutions to enable computing on real-world data,” said Dennis McWilliams, Partner at Sante Ventures.
“We look forward to deploying EscrowAI to further secure the privacy of Mount Sinai’s data, and our confidence in EscrowAI is evidenced by our investment in BeeKeeperAI. The deployment will streamline collaborations to positively impact health and well-being for patients and society,” said Erik Lium, PhD, Chief Commercial Innovation Officer at Mount Sinai and President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners.
Powerful Combination of BeeKeeperAI’s SaaS Workflows and Microsoft Azure confidential computing
BeeKeeperAI recently announced the general availability of EscrowAI™, its patent-protected, zero-trust collaboration platform. EscrowAI seamlessly integrates Azure confidential computing capabilities, resulting in a push-button ease in deploying a zero-trust workflow to support AI development and deployment. In healthcare, EscrowAI enables HIPAA-compliant research on real-world data without exposing the patient data, thereby dramatically reducing the time required to complete the required approvals and contracting.
“As a health tech and longevity focused venture fund, we strive to identify opportunities where AI and data can move us away from a sick care model. With BeeKeeperAI, we are very excited to back founders that understand the global complexity of regulatory (patient privacy) and the dynamic, rapidly evolving nature of medical knowledge. This solution will help to ensure that comprehensive and representative datasets will train the next generation of AI with patient safety, data integrity and clinical efficacy prioritized,” said Ricky Mehra, General Partner at Continuum Health Ventures.
As a member of Microsoft for Startups and Microsoft’s Pegasus program, BeeKeeperAI is using Azure services within EscrowAI, which is available to Microsoft customers as an option to purchase directly from Microsoft, simplifying their procurement process.
BeeKeeperAI Solves Real-world Data Access Challenges with EscrowAI Platform
BeeKeeperAI’s EscrowAI is a patented collaboration workflow solution that sets a new standard in sightless computing. Within the zero-trust workflow the PPI and IP are encrypted: at rest, in transit, and in process. The platform leverages a hardware-based secure enclave environment to bring together the encrypted data and algorithm where they unencrypt in protected memory and execute the computation. Only a predetermined output is allowed out of the enclave.
About BeeKeeperAI
BeeKeeperAI is the pioneer in confidential, sightless computing within a zero-trust architecture for the development and deployment of AI in healthcare and other privacy protected data. BeeKeeperAI is accelerating the broader availability of AI-powered solutions that will help to redefine the future of healthcare and commerce. For more information, go to www.beekeeperai.com.
