Knostic, a Virginia startup building technology to manage data leakage and oversharing with enterprise-class AI tools, has banked $11 million in a new funding round.
The company, which emerged from stealth last April with ambitious plans to provide a “need-to-know” filter on the answers generated by large language models, said the seed-stage financing was led by Bight Pixel Capital.
Silicon Valley CISO Investments) and previous backers DNX Ventures and Seedcamp also took equity positions.
Knostic, founded by veteran security pros Gadi Evron and Sounil Yu, has raised a total of $14 million to build and market a “knowledge control layer” that ensures that AI outputs adhere to a company’s need-to-know principles.
The Knostic approach is simple: instead of blocking information outright, the product ensures that AI systems only share data that a user is cleared to see. For example, an intern should not be able to receive answers on sensitive financial matters or data that contains intellectual property.
“The problem is that these tools just can’t keep a secret,” Evron explained, noting that AI-powered products like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Glean lack the ability to discern what’s appropriate and in what context.
Knostic and its investors are betting there’s a big market for technology that integrates directly with AI systems to control the flow of information and applies need-to-know filters that adjusts AI responses based on a user’s clearance.
The Knostic product line also handles continuous oversharing detection by regularly simulating queries to catch potential data leaks.
Knostic is also providing tools for contextual curation to deliver sanitized answers that remain useful without exposing confidential details and real-time alerts to help administrators to quickly tighten permissions when needed.
The company fits into the emerging category of AI-driven data loss prevention (DLP) that tackle oversharing with LLMs and AI-powered productivity tools. Knostic’s technology bridges this gap by integrating principles of identity and access management with AI governance, promising tooling to ensure that sensitive information is shared on a need-to-know basis.
Related: Knostic Emerges From Stealth With Enterprise Gen-AI Access Controls
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