Lasso Security launches CPU-only AI guardrail, raises $30M

Enterprises that put guardrails in front of production AI systems typically run each request through a second large language model, which requires accelerated hardware whether the request is dangerous or not. Lasso said that cost pushes most enterprises into inspecting only a portion of their AI traffic. LEAP is transformer-free and returns a verdict in under five milliseconds, the company said, achieving thousands of times the throughput of existing guardrails based on its own benchmarks.

Lasso’s platform has two engines. LEAP handles the vast majority of traffic. The second engine, RAPID, runs a self-hosted model that rules on the small share of decisions requiring a judgment call against a plain-language policy, at a small fraction of the cost of a commercial model provider. A routing layer decides which engine sees what, keeping most traffic off GPUs.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Elad Schulman said the question of whether enterprises will put AI in front of customers is settled, and that they now need security able to inspect not only what agents say but what they do. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Ophir Dror said the prevailing concept of guardian agents overseeing other agents is infeasible in real-world deployments with millions of prompts and actions, saying, “unless you are the one paying the bill.”

The company came at the problem from the attacking side first. Its offensive team runs automated red teaming against customer applications, working up from single prompts to autonomous multiturn attacks. During an engagement at a global healthcare provider, Lasso said the team pulled every patient record and was able to alter prescriptions.

Lasso's software is deployed inside customer environments across financial services, insurance, hospitality and automotive. The company says it now covers tens of thousands of agents and billions of requests and actions a month, with revenue growing more than 500% in the past 12 months. BMW AG, eToro Group Ltd., Fiverr International Ltd. and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are among its customers.

ClearSky Advisors led the funding round. Entrée Capital, which led Lasso’s $6 million seed round in 2023, increased its position, with iAngels, Singtel Innov8 Pte. Ltd., Mindset and Swish Data also joining. Lasso was founded in 2023 by Schulman and Dror and has raised more than $37 million to date. The new capital will fund engineering hires in Tel Aviv and New York, a push into federal and regulated-industry accounts, and broader sales coverage in North America and Europe.