Cranium

Cranium provides an enterprise AI security and trust software platform designed for organizations that both build and utilize artificial intelligence. The company emerged from stealth in April 2023, following its incubation within KPMG Studio, the professional services firm's venture incubator. Cranium was co-founded by Jonathan Dambrot, who serves as CEO, along with Paul Spicer, Felix Knoll, and Daniel Christman. Dambrot, a former partner at KPMG, identified the need for AI security while leading the firm's Third-Party Security services and observing that clients were not adequately securing their AI/ML models against adversarial threats. This experience, combined with his background as a founder of Prevalent, a third-party risk management company, informed the development of Cranium.

The company's business model is centered on its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Cranium Enterprise, which is sold via annual subscription. The platform helps clients map, monitor, and manage their AI/ML environments to protect against threats without disrupting existing workflows for data science and development teams. It serves a client base that includes global leaders in sectors like financial services, health sciences, retail, and consumer packaged goods. Since its launch, Cranium has secured a total of $32 million in funding over two rounds, including a $25 million Series A in October 2023 led by Titanium Ventures (formerly Telstra Ventures), with participation from original seed investors KPMG and SYN Ventures. These funds are allocated towards product development, R&D, and scaling go-to-market strategies.

The Cranium platform offers a suite of tools to provide end-to-end visibility and governance across an organization's AI ecosystem. Key features include the Cranium Code Sensor, which automatically maps AI pipelines, datasets, models, and libraries to create an AI Bill of Materials (BoM). A central component is the 'AI Card,' a feature that creates a portable record of an AI system's security, compliance, and trustworthiness, which can be shared with regulators, clients, and other stakeholders. The platform also provides AI Exposure Management, enabling security teams to characterize the AI attack surface, assess vulnerabilities, and manage risks from both internal and third-party AI systems. This functionality is designed to bridge the gap between cybersecurity teams, data scientists, and compliance officers, providing a unified view of AI security risks. Cranium also helps organizations align with evolving regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act by automating compliance assessments and reporting. Keywords: AI security, AI governance, machine learning security, AI trust, AI compliance, AI risk management, adversarial threat detection, AI Bill of Materials (BoM), AI model security, generative AI security, AI pipeline security, third-party AI risk, responsible AI, AI attack surface management, AI exposure management, KPMG spinout, Jonathan Dambrot, SYN Ventures, AI vulnerability assessment, regulatory compliance AI