Guardrails AI, a San Francisco-based startup that helps developers build and reuse validation techniques for their AI models, announced a $7.5 million seed round on Thursday. The round was led by Zetta Venture Partners, with participation from Factory, Pear VC, Bloomberg Beta, Github Fund, and several angels, including renowned AI expert Ian Goodfellow. The startup was co-founded by Shreya Rajpal, a former AI engineer at Drive.ai and Apple, and Diego Oppenheimer, a Seattle tech veteran who previously co-founded Algorithmia, a machine learning operations platform that was acquired by DataRobot last year.
Guardrails AI’s platform is an open source tool that allows developers to create and reuse validation techniques for their AI models, especially large language models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4. The platform aims to secure reliability and prevent unintended outputs, such as misinformation, bias, toxicity, or plagiarism, when working with AI applications. The platform also enables developers to share and collaborate on validation techniques, and to access a library of existing techniques from the community.
A mission to empower AI developers to build trustworthy AI applications
Guardrails AI’s mission is to empower AI developers to build trustworthy AI applications, by providing them with the tools and resources they need to manage the risks and challenges of AI development. The startup believes that validation techniques are essential for ensuring the quality and safety of AI applications, and that they should be easy to create, reuse, and share. The startup also hopes to foster a culture of responsibility and accountability among AI developers, and to contribute to the advancement of the AI field.
