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Cisco Acquires Yaron Singer’s Robust Intelligence to Enhance AI Security

Vaseline August 27, 2024

Communications giant Cisco has announced plans to acquire Robust Intelligence, a company founded by Israeli mathematician professor Yaron Singer. The purchase price was not disclosed.

The acquisition was announced in a blog post by Tom Gillis, Cisco’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Security Business Group. Robust Intelligence’s platform protects AI models throughout their entire lifecycle, from development to production. Through advanced automation and risk mitigation, Robust Intelligence helps organizations securely deploy AI applications while meeting industry and regulatory standards. The company currently has a small number of employees in Israel and, prior to the acquisition, had planned to significantly expand its operations.

In June of this year, Cisco announced that it planned to invest $1 billion in AI companies through a special fund it was setting up. This acquisition was the result of the fund’s activities.

Robust Intelligence was founded in 2021 by Yaron Singer and Kojin Oshiba. Singer, one of the youngest mathematics professors at Harvard University, was given tenure at the age of 40.

To date, the company has raised $44 million, with Cisco as one of the investors. In its latest round of funding, the company was valued at over $200 million.

Robust’s solution was a bit ahead of its time, because until the introduction of ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, which sometimes made embarrassing mistakes, not everyone was aware of how disastrous such mistakes could be, especially when it comes to enterprise applications for sectors such as finance.

Over the past two years, it has become much easier for Singer to explain to potential clients the implications of the hallucinations of artificial intelligence systems, no matter how advanced and sophisticated they are. In addition, Robust is experiencing increased demand for its systems.

“Security leaders need purpose-built solutions they can trust to keep pace with the new paradigm of AI risk,” said Singer. “Our team is excited about the integral role our platform will play in shaping the future of the Cisco Security Cloud, delivering end-to-end AI security, and leading the AI revolution with Cisco.”

“We see Robust Intelligence as a natural fit for Cisco that will strengthen our commitment to responsible AI and deliver better outcomes through security for AI and AI for security,” Gillis wrote. “Robust Intelligence’s focus and deep expertise in AI model security and governance perfectly complement our existing capabilities and accelerate our Cisco Security Cloud roadmap. The combination of Cisco and Robust Intelligence means we can seamlessly deliver advanced AI security processing into existing data streams by embedding it into Cisco security and networking products.”