Cybersecurity firm Mindgard raises £22.2m led by Album VC and Karma Ventures
This article covers Mindgard, a cybersecurity startup spun out of Lancaster University, which has raised £22.2m in a series A funding round to scale its AI security platform. The funding will be used to grow product, engineering, sales and marketing capacity to support enterprises and security teams deploying AI in production.
Mindgard, a cybersecurity startup spun out of Lancaster University, has raised £22.2m in a series A funding round to scale its AI security platform as more organisations move AI into production. The funding will be used to grow product, engineering, sales and marketing capacity as demand for tools that test and protect AI systems increases.
Why it matters
Mindgard’s platform addresses a fast-emerging problem: AI systems introduce new and often subtle attack surfaces that traditional security tooling does not cover. The company says its research and offensive-security methods have identified more than 150 publicly disclosed high-impact vulnerabilities in widely used AI applications, including a zero-day code execution flaw in Cursor IDE, a trusted workspace issue in Google Antigravity, and guardrail failures in ChatGPT image generation.
Those discoveries feed a proprietary knowledge base that Mindgard uses to model attacker behaviour against models, agents and applications. As enterprises increasingly embed AI in core operations, security teams face a practical gap between existing risk frameworks and the day-to-day threats affecting deployed AI. Mindgard positions itself as a tool to close that gap through continuous testing and run-time protections.
Inside the product
Mindgard’s platform combines automated reconnaissance with offensive testing and run-time monitoring. Key capabilities described by the company include discovery of “shadow AI” and agents, AI red teaming to simulate adversarial campaigns, AI assessment to find exploitable weaknesses, and runtime protection to identify and respond to attacks in real time. It also offers model scanning and governance support intended to align with standards such as NIST AI RMF and forthcoming regulatory regimes.
The product is anchored on research from the AI security lab at Lancaster University and a decade of academic work that the company says underpins its offensive techniques. Mindgard reports deployments across sectors with demanding security needs, including financial services, pharmaceuticals, gaming, digital services, semiconductors and healthcare.
Who are the investors?
Mindgard closed the £22.2m series A with plans to scale internationally. The round was led by Album VC and included participation from Karma Ventures alongside existing backers .406 Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, IQ Capital and Lakestar.
In the announcement, Ty Boswell, Partner at Album VC, said:
Organizations are moving AI into critical operations without security infrastructure designed for how these systems operate in practice. Mindgard has translated deep research and elite offensive-security expertise into a continuously evolving capability that enables enterprises to stay ahead of emerging AI threats. We believe this team can define the AI security category.
In the announcement, Kristjan Laanemaa, Founding Partner at Karma Ventures, said:
AI security is an emerging category and Mindgard stands out as one of the names to watch. Its technology is built on world-class offensive security research, combining automated reconnaissance with smart penetration testing. Crucially, it’s already proven in production - some of the most demanding F2000 enterprises rely on it to safeguard their AI systems. That combination of a defensible research moat and proven enterprise pull is rare. We’re proud to support James, Peter, and the team in defining this category.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of cyber security venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of cyber security angel investors in the UK
Founder perspective
In the announcement, James Brear, CEO of Mindgard, said:
AI is creating an entirely new attack surface and organizations need a fundamentally different approach to securing it. We don't just automate attacks. We operationalize expertise, turning the knowledge of leading AI security researchers and offensive security practitioners into the capabilities every enterprise needs to secure their AI. This investment will expand our global reach and help make attacker-driven AI security a core part of how organizations implement and manage AI.
Mindgard is headquartered in Boston and London and says it will use the fresh capital to increase its presence and product capabilities as enterprise customers adopt its approach.
The bigger picture
Mindgard’s raise is another indicator that AI security is becoming a distinct investment category as businesses move models into production and regulators prepare frameworks such as the EU AI Act. The company’s UK research roots at Lancaster University reflect a longer trend of deeptech spinouts commercialising academic work in cybersecurity and AI. For UK and European organisations, the deal underscores growing demand for specialised tooling that combines offensive research with operational protections as part of broader AI risk-management strategies.
They've invested in Mindgard
Get to know these cyber security investors
| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Album VC( ) | ||||
 Karma VC( ) Karma Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on deep-tech software star... Tallinn, Estonia | ||||
 .406 Ventures( ) Boston, US  | ||||
 Atlantic Bridge Ventures( ) Dublin, Ireland | ||||
 IQ Capital( ) IQ Capital is a dedicated European deep tech venture capital firm, specialising ... London, Cambridge  | ||||
 Lakestar( ) Auterion is a venture capital firm focused on open-source operating systems for ... London | ||||
| All investors | All investor sectors | All funded startups | All funding rounds |
Click here for a full list of 7,589+ startup investors in the UK