What happened
Protege, a U.S.-based AI data exchange platform, has secured an additional $30 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), extending its previous $25 million round and bringing its total funding to roughly $65 million since founding in 2024. The investment will support product acceleration, partner growth, and expansion of its platform that licenses and curates real-world proprietary data for AI training and evaluation.
Who is affected
The announcement impacts:
- AI developers and enterprise teams seeking reliable access to high-quality, proprietary datasets at scale.
- Data holders across sectors such as healthcare, media, and imaging who can now monetize and govern access to their data through Protege’s marketplace.
- Investors and tech ecosystem stakeholders focused on data infrastructure for AI development.Â
Why CISOs should care
Protege’s model highlights a growing emphasis on responsible, compliant access to real-world data, a core concern for security and privacy leaders. CISOs are increasingly tasked with ensuring that AI training data pipelines do not expose sensitive information or create governance risks. A platform built to standardise secure data licensing and de-identification directly intersects with enterprise requirements for data protection, auditability, and risk management.
3 Practical Actions for CISOs
- Review AI Data Sourcing Policies: Evaluate current practices for acquiring and licensing proprietary training data and ensure they align with internal governance and compliance frameworks.
- Integrate Data Governance Controls: Work with data engineering and AI teams to enforce de-identification, access controls, and monitoring when ingesting external datasets.
- Engage in Vendor Risk Assessments: Incorporate assessments of platforms like Protege into your third-party risk management processes to verify their security posture and data handling assurances.