Latest news with #EnsembleVC
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Ensemble VC Launches Comprehensive AI Tool to derisk venture capital investments, With Partners Ranging From Sand Hill Road VCs to Silicon Valley's Top Lawyers
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ensemble VC has developed and deployed a comprehensive system to derisk venture capital investments, with partners ranging from Sand Hill Road VCs to Silicon Valley's most respected law firm. Ensemble co-founder and data scientist Gopi Sundaramurthy spent five years developing 'Unity,' which ranks prospective portfolio company teams based on hundreds of objective data points. Unity then ranks teams — including teams with first-time founders — according to their likelihood of commercial success. Unity can then also help portfolio companies build teams with people most likely to excel in their roles, whether in biomanufacturing, machine learning engineering, downstream processing, go-to-market strategy, marketing and communication, HR or other functions. 'Leading venture capitalists are betting their limited partners' money on AI entrepreneurs. But the VC industry, for the most part, hasn't used AI itself to improve performance across all three major functions of its own industry — sourcing, selecting and servicing portfolio companies,' said Dr. Gopi Sundaramurthy, co-founder of Ensemble VC, former Head of Data Science at the Kauffman Fellows VC Fund, and the first data scientist at IBM Watson Health. 'We decided to tackle the trifecta.' VC firms Draper Associates, Boost, Overmatch and others are already collaborating with Ensemble to use the tool, which can be trained on specific investment niches — from SaaS to military tech, fusion and space exploration. And Silicon Valley's preeminent law firm, Wilson Sonsini, is also using Unity to assess which startup clients to pursue. 'No matter how vast your network, human constraints always limited your network and thus your deal flow and potential,' said Tim Draper, the third-generation VC and founder of Draper Associates (formerly DFJ), Draper University, and the hit TV show, Meet The Drapers. His investments include Baidu, Hotmail, Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, DocuSign, Coinbase and Robinhood. 'Unity helps eliminate the human constraints.' Derisking VC Unity scrapes millions of points on the Internet — from yesterday's X posts and SEC filings to alma maters, obscure details on LinkedIn, and stock performance on secondary markets — to assess founders, team members and anyone else on an early-stage team. Ensemble's system instantly generates navigable market maps, tracking deep networks of investors, employees, and founders as they move across industries. Unity searches dynamically — by investor, company, geography, and sector — ensuring that the firm doesn't miss entrepreneurs or their seed-stage, high-performing startups simply because they don't yet fit pre-existing patterns. Unity also tracks where talent is moving. The data platform provides a real-time view of technical talent flow, anticipating industry shifts before they materialize. This combination of direct technical experience and proprietary data insights gives Unity users an unmatched ability to spot and back the best companies before the market catches up. About Ensemble VC Ensemble VC is an early-stage investor based in Austin, TX. The firm takes a product-centric approach to investing, leveraging the firm's comprehensive data platform to intelligently and scalably support founders. Ensemble invests early in highly technical emerging technologies that span from AI to defense technology. For more information about Ensemble, please visit
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Manifest Lands $15M To Bring Software And AI Supply Chain Transparency
Left: Daniel Bardenstein (co-founder and CTO). Right: Marc Frankel (co-founder and CEO) Manifest, a technology transparency platform for software and AI supply chains, today announced it has raised a $15M Series A led by Ensemble VC, with participation from AE Ventures (a strategic partner of the Boeing Company), Overmatch VC, and Leap435, and existing investors First Round Capital, XYZ, and Homebrew. Manifest automates the discovery and tracking of vulnerabilities and other critical risks across software and AI supply chains—an increasingly urgent priority as attacks on these vectors accelerate. The company tripled its year-over-year ARR, grew revenue 5x, and maintained a 100% customer renewal rate. Customers include the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Anduril, several Fortune 500 companies, and enterprises in financial services, automotive, healthcare, and defense. Manifest's platform helps safeguard more than $100 billion in defense-related software procurement alone. Manifest addresses software supply chain risk through its automated Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) and AI Bills of Materials (AIBOMs). The platform generates, manages, and analyzes an organization's BOMs, instantly identifying embedded vulnerabilities in both built and purchased software—offering proactive alerts before issues are even known. Think of an SBOM as a detailed recipe card for your favorite dish. Just as a recipe lists every ingredient needed to make a meal, an SBOM lists every component that makes up a piece of software. Software supply chains remain one of the most opaque and vulnerable aspects of enterprise technology. When hospitals spend millions of dollars buying medical devices, or automotive companies incorporate third-party software into their vehicles, they lack visibility into hidden risks in the software that monitors patients and powers our cars. Existing scanners aren't designed to detect threats buried deep in third-party code, open source components, or AI model dependencies. Software supply chain attacks have surged 1300% in the past three years, and 62% of enterprises have already been targeted. Marc Frankel, Manifest's co-founder and CEO, points out that as organizations rush to adopt generative AI and LLMs, many security and risk teams are operating blindly. 'The software supply chain is the new digital blind spot,' he says. 'We could consider it incredibly irresponsible to buy a house without an inspection or maintenance records. But that's exactly how most enterprises build and buy technology today. It's no longer acceptable to deploy software or AI without knowing what's inside.' Michele Iversen, former Department of Defense lead for ICT Supply Chain Risk Management, emphasizes the importance of SBOMs for enhancing transparency and security in software supply chains. 'Manifest Cyber excels in SBOM management by providing automated tools to generate, track, and analyze SBOMs, ensuring compliance with regulations like the U.S. Executive Order 14028,' she notes. Nathan VanRheenen, Director & Chief Engineer of Boeing Ventures, also highlights Manifest's critical role in addressing the complexities of global supply chains. He explains that Manifest's automated SBOM and AIBOM capabilities, combined with strong regulatory compliance, uniquely position the company to lead the way in software supply chain transparency for enterprises like Boeing and its partners. Just as artificial intelligence is transforming everything from customer service to product development, it's also changing how we track software components. Enter AIBOMs – AI Bills of Materials – launched in December 2023 as the next generation of digital tracking systems. Think of an AIBOM as a smart inventory system for AI systems. While traditional SBOMs tell you what's in your software, AIBOMs go further by: The SBOM space includes a number of players—some with legacy Software Composition Analysis (SCA) capabilities extending into the space, and others as small start-ups aiming to carve out a niche by focusing on specific industry verticals or technology subsets. Manifest has distinguished itself through innovation in the third-party SBOM space, a stronger emphasis on novel AIBOM capabilities, and a technical moat via its FedRAMP® High authorization to support government and the defense industrial base. Manifest's AIBOM capabilities extend these protections to AI systems. The platform inventories AI models and datasets, tracks their dependencies, and monitors deployment environments to detect tampering or poisoned inputs. AIBOMs include critical information such as model architecture, licensing, training data lineage, and acceptable use criteria. This enables enterprises to select trustworthy models, enforce AI risk policies, and respond to emerging threats in real time. Industry experts believe that, to mitigate growing risks in complex software and AI, clear visibility into their composition is crucial. Tyler Shields, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, explains: "SBOMs and AIBOMs provide this essential context, enabling security teams to track foundational components that are otherwise impossible to manage manually. This detailed level of analysis and comprehension of AI and software building blocks is vital for effective remediation and security.' Manifest was founded by Marc Frankel and Daniel Bardenstein, who met while working at Palantir, and have both spent their careers building cybersecurity products. Frankel previously led public sector customer success at Expanse and held leadership roles in government data analytics at Palantir. Bardenstein was formerly Chief of Technology Strategy & Delivery at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), led cybersecurity programs at the Defense Digital Service, including for the COVID-19 vaccines, and built cybersecurity products at several Silicon Valley companies. Both have known each other for over a decade (with ~10 years of experience working in cybersecurity spaces), but it wasn't until the Log4shell vulnerability, when they came together to found Manifest Cyber to solve this urgent problem. Software supply chain attacks were surging, and AI adoption was accelerating, yet enterprises were still flying blind when it came to what was inside the technology they relied on. Conrad Shang, Founder and Managing Partner at Ensemble VC, notes that the constant deluge of cyber threats in the AI era leaves many organizations unaware of their vulnerabilities. He highlights that Manifest's ability to automate SBOM and AIBOM analysis makes it a critical platform for enterprises committed to securing their software supply chains. "Marc and Daniel bring deep expertise, uniquely positioning them to tackle these urgent and evolving cyber threats," he adds. Mike D'Arezzo, Executive Director of Security and GRC at Wellstar Health, shares how Manifest has helped his organization with software component tracking. By cataloging their systems and tracking supporting components, Wellstar can quickly assess exposure and risk, especially for issues like Log4JS vulnerabilities. Before Manifest, identifying and managing at-risk components was time-consuming, often requiring extensive network scans and manufacturer communication. Now, Wellstar can reach confident answers quickly, allowing them to focus more on other security tasks and improving their defense capabilities. 'The round ended up being oversubscribed, so we had to turn away some really great funds. We ultimately expanded the round to accommodate a few we believed would be especially strategic', shares Marc Frankel, Manifest's co-founder and CEO. 'For us, it was a very straightforward experience. We know not everyone has been as fortunate recently.' Frankel explains that Manifest is focused on creating the future of technology transparency—where providers have both a mandate and a duty to disclose what's inside the software they deliver to customers. When reflecting on the fundraising process, he breaks success down into four key elements: the founding team, the industry you're in, traction, and the completeness of your vision. 'If you have those four things,' Marc says, 'you're probably going to be successful.' In today's digital economy, not knowing what's in your software is like running a restaurant without knowing what's in your food – it's a recipe for disaster. With the global AI market projected to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2030, having clear "ingredient lists" through SBOMs and AIBOMs isn't just good practice – it's becoming essential for survival. The company's next steps include targeting key sectors such as financial services, healthcare, automotive, and defense, where the need for enhanced supply chain transparency is most critical, and the regulatory pressure is highest. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, Manifest remains committed to providing organizations with the tools they need to understand and secure their software and AI supply chains, ensuring resilience in an increasingly complex technological environment.
