Protopia AI

Protopia AI is a software company focused on data privacy for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. Its core technology is the Stained Glass Transform (SGT), a privacy-enhancing technology (PET) that generates what the company calls a "Randomized Re-Representation" of input data. This transformation allows ML models to extract task-specific insights from data without exposing the underlying sensitive or plaintext information during training or inference. SGT is designed to be compatible with multiple data types and can be deployed across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. The technology is positioned as an additional security layer for AI pipelines where traditional encryption is not applicable — specifically addressing the gap in data protection during ML training and inference operations. The company's customer base includes government and defense entities, such as the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force (via a $1.25M Direct-to-Phase II SBIR contract), and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA SHIELD IDIQ contract vehicle), as well as financial institutions. Protopia AI has also integrated SGT with NVIDIA NIM microservices, supporting AI factory deployments for government use cases. Use cases include securing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, agentic AI tool calling workflows, and LLM inference on shared infrastructure. The company targets both enterprise and government buyers dealing with sensitive data in AI environments. Protopia AI is backed by investors including ATX Venture Partners, Galaxy, DNX Ventures, and Silverton Partners. The company is headquartered in Texas, with leadership drawing from backgrounds at NVIDIA, Toyota, and In-Q-Tel.