TL;DR: As enterprises adopt AI at breakneck speed, they face new risks: hallucinations, data leaks, bias, and regulatory exposure. Ciphero is building the AI Verification Layer for enterprises, combining security, accuracy, and compliance into a single horizontal platform. We’re excited to back Saoud, Rob, Sen, and the Ciphero team as they define a new category—AI Loss Prevention.
The problem: Shadow AI and enterprise risk
AI is spreading across the enterprise faster than IT teams can keep up. Employees adopt AI tools for productivity, but CISOs are left blind to how inputs, outputs, and sensitive data flow through these systems. The result:
- 69% of organizations cite data leaks as their top AI concern, yet nearly half lack AI-specific controls.
- Only 6% have a mature AI security strategy.
- Shadow AI tools and hallucinated outputs create both security and compliance nightmares.
Enterprises need a central verification layer to monitor, govern, and secure AI usage before the risks spiral further.
What Ciphero does
Ciphero is building a model-agnostic, bi-directional verification platform that monitors both inputs and outputs of AI systems.
Think of it as the SSL certificate of enterprise AI—a trust layer that sits across the enterprise, ensuring safe and compliant use of AI.
Why we’re excited
- A proven founding team
CEO Saoud Khalifah and COO Rob Gross co-founded Fakespot, which scaled from a browser extension into a trusted fraud-detection platform acquired by Mozilla. With Dr. Sen Tian (NYU PhD, ex Fakespot, and ex-Mozilla) as Chief AI Officer, the team brings a decade of experience building classifiers, trust layers, and enterprise AI tools.
- Clear category creation
Ciphero is defining AI Loss Prevention (AILP): Analogous to Data Loss Prevention, but designed for generative AI. Enterprises already allocate budget for DLP; Ciphero extends that mental model into AI, creating a natural wedge into existing CISO spend.
- Early market pull
Reflecting strong cross-industry demand, Ciphero is executing on pilots with a leading eCommerce company, a major law firm, and leading financial publication company with a robust follow-on pipeline. These conversations are happening before the product is even fully rolled out, validating the urgent need of companies to control AI throughout the enterprise.
- Advisors and credibility
Advisors include CISOs and other cybersecurity executives who have validated Ciphero’s products, approach, and market opportunity.
- Timing
Enterprise AI adoption is exploding, but regulation and governance are lagging. With governments and Fortune 500s scrambling to put safeguards in place, Ciphero is well-positioned to become the default AI Verification Layer.
Our thesis fit
At Propeller, we back the enabling layers of the AI era—the trust, governance, and infrastructure platforms that make enterprise AI adoption safe, scalable, and compliant. Ciphero fits squarely here: building the missing guardrails for AI use across industries.
We’re proud to support Saoud, Rob, Sen, and the Ciphero team in building the future of enterprise AI security and governance.