Openlayer
Openlayer is a San Francisco-based AI governance and observability platform that helps enterprises evaluate, monitor, and govern LLM and traditional ML systems via automated testing, real-time guardrails, multimodal tracing, and built-in compliance mapping for the EU AI Act and ISO 42001.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2022
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Openlayer does
Openlayer is a privately held AI governance and observability platform headquartered in San Francisco with Brazilian origins, founded around 2021-2022 and backed by Y Combinator. The company provides a unified platform for evaluating, monitoring, and governing both LLM-based and traditional ML systems across the model lifecycle. Its product suite comprises six core modules — LLM Evaluation, LLM Observability, ML Evaluation, ML Observability, Data Quality Monitoring, and AI Governance & Compliance — supported by two infrastructure sub-products: Openlayer Governance (a dedicated regulatory-mapping workspace launched November 2025) and Openlayer Gateway (an LLM routing and proxy layer launched May 2026). The platform supports 100+ automated tests, multimodal tracing (text, images, audio, PDFs), real-time guardrails against prompt injection and PII leakage, and automated compliance mapping for frameworks including the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001, NIST AI RMF, OWASP, TRAIGA, and E23 MRM. It is API-first, exposing REST APIs, a CLI, Python/TypeScript/Ruby SDKs, and an MCP server, with native integration into major LLM providers, agent frameworks, data warehouses, and CI/CD systems.
The underlying technology combines offline evaluation, real-time production monitoring, automated compliance mapping, and data quality checks in a single engine. Notable technical components include the Openlayer Gateway (an LLM routing/proxy layer that enforces inline guardrails), multimodal tracing with Gantt-style timeline visualization, KS-score drift monitoring tuned for financial use cases (credit risk, fraud), LLM-as-judge tests using GPT and Claude models, Ragas-based metrics for RAG systems, and a one-call `openlayer.init()` auto-instrumentation pattern that patches every installed supported LLM SDK. The platform integrates with 30+ systems, including Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, LangChain, LangGraph, Google ADK, Salesforce Agentforce, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Snowflake, Databricks, GitHub Actions, and the three major cloud marketplaces. Openlayer has been recognized in the 2026 Gartner Market Guide for AI Evaluation and Observability Platforms and the 2022 CB Insights AI 100 list.
Openlayer operates a hybrid go-to-market model: a self-serve, product-led growth Basic tier (free, capped at 20,000 inferences/month) drives developer adoption, while a sales-led Enterprise tier (custom pricing, SAML SSO, on-prem deployment, 99.99% SLA, white-glove onboarding) captures larger regulated buyers. Distribution is augmented by a flagship channel partnership with Telefónica Tech for Europe and Latin America and listings on the AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud marketplaces. The company has raised approximately $19.3M in total funding — a $4.8M seed round in May 2023 led by Quiet Capital and a $14.5M Series A in May 2025 led by Race Capital — to expand product capabilities and global markets. Named customers span e-commerce (eBay), cybersecurity (Jericho Security), travel (Hurb), and recruiting (Cutshort), with anonymized enterprise references in financial services, healthcare, and global trading.
Openlayer firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Openlayer
- Legal name
- Openlayer
- Website
- https://openlayer.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2022
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Openlayer is a San Francisco-based AI governance and observability platform that helps enterprises evaluate, monitor, and govern LLM and traditional ML systems via automated testing, real-time guardrails, multimodal tracing, and built-in compliance mapping for the EU AI Act and ISO 42001.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Openlayer industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI Governance and Observability Software
- NAICS
- Testing Laboratories and Services (54138)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Secure Model Deployment & Runtime Protection (sandboxing, isolation) (HDAAAKAH)
Keywords
Where Openlayer is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Openlayer business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription (Basic free tier and Enterprise custom): Basic tier is a free/trial subscription with usage limits (1 member, 5 projects, 20,000 inferences/month). Enterprise tier is a custom-priced subscription that unlocks unlimited usage, team access controls, on-prem deployment, SAML SSO, 99.99% SLA, explainability, and white-glove onboarding.
- Usage-based inference pricing: Basic tier is capped at 20,000 inferences per month, with higher tiers offering custom inference volumes. The inference-based metric is the primary unit of consumption, creating a usage-based component within the broader subscription.
- Cloud marketplace transactions: Openlayer is transactable via AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud marketplaces, with custom onboarding flows for AWS Marketplace buyers, enabling procurement through enterprise cloud commitments.
- Professional services and white-glove onboarding: Enterprise customers receive white-glove onboarding, advanced support, custom terms, and access to professional services (e.g., 99.99% SLA, custom support methods, and on-prem deployment support).
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Basic (free trial) — 1 member, 5 projects, 1 inference pipeline per project, 20,000 inferences/month, 20 commits per project, 3-month data retention, 1 workspace, community support. |
| Other | Multi-year contract | Enterprise (custom) — unlimited members, projects, inference pipelines, inference logs, commits, tests; custom data retention; SAML SSO; on-premise deployment; compliance reports; white-glove onboarding; 99.99% SLA. |
Go-to-market motion5 records
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels8 records
Openlayer product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Openlayer is an AI governance and observability platform that provides offline evaluation, real-time production monitoring, automated compliance mapping, and data quality checks across LLM and traditional ML systems. It ships 100+ automated tests, real-time guardrails that prevent prompt injection, PII leakage, and hallucinations, multimodal tracing, and routing/proxying via the Openlayer Gateway, exposed through REST APIs, a CLI, Python/TypeScript SDKs, and an MCP server.
Product overview
Openlayer is a single unified AI quality and observability platform organized as a platform-plus-modules architecture: one shared evaluation, tracing, monitoring, and governance engine that powers six core product modules - LLM Evaluation, LLM Observability, ML Evaluation, ML Observability, Data Quality Monitoring, and AI Governance & Compliance - and two infrastructure sub-products: Openlayer Governance (a dedicated regulatory-mapping workspace launched November 2025) and Openlayer Gateway (an LLM routing and proxy layer launched May 2026). All modules share the same test definitions, traces, dashboards, CI/CD hooks (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), compliance controls, and integrations so teams can evaluate, monitor, and govern generative AI, classical ML, and agent systems from one place.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- LLM Evaluation Testing and benchmarking suite for large language models and LLM-powered applications, covering prompt-level, multi-turn, RAG, and LLM-as-judge evaluations across many model and framework providers. Built for AI/ML engineers and product teams that need systematic LLM quality assurance before and after release.
- LLM Observability Tracing and monitoring layer for LLM calls and agent trajectories, capturing inputs, outputs, latency, cost, multimodal payloads, and OpenTelemetry spans across providers and frameworks. Designed for engineering teams that need to debug and monitor live LLM and agent systems.
- ML Evaluation Evaluation and validation suite for classical machine learning models, with dataset, feature, and prediction-level checks against tabular data sourced from warehouses such as BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, and Postgres. Targets data scientists and ML engineers responsible for model quality.
- ML Observability
Quantifiable outcome
- 78% revenue increase (Jericho Security, Q4 2023 → Q1 2024)
- +6 more outcomes
Companies that use Openlayer
Customer profileNamed customers7 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Openlayer technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration43 records
AI capability13 records
Feature9 records
Openlayer partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.
- Telefónica TechflagshipCommercial partnership to deliver end-to-end AI governance and observability services to enterprises across Europe and Latin America. Openlayer provides the technology layer (structured pre-deployment testing, real-time observability, automated compliance mapping), while Telefónica Tech contributes consulting, systems integration, managed operations, and local support. Targets regulated industries and is aligned with the EU AI Act and ISO 42001 frameworks.
- Salesforce (Agentforce integration)coreOpenlayer provides a generally available (GA) integration with Salesforce Agentforce, including configurable login domain (production, sandbox, or My Domain) and an updated Builder intermediate-step schema for tracing Agentforce conversations end-to-end.
- Microsoft (Copilot Studio integration)coreOpenlayer integrates with Microsoft Copilot Studio via a native pull-based data source. The integration covers Azure AD setup, agent discovery, sync frequency, and backfill; Logic App and Batch API paths have been deprecated.
- Google (Gemini API, Google ADK integrations)coreOpenlayer supports tracing systems built with Google ADK in Python and includes a Google Gemini API integration. The platform also supports Vertex AI as an LLM-as-a-judge evaluator.
- Anthropic (Claude Agent SDK integration)coreFirst-party tracing for the Anthropic Claude Agent SDK in Python — captures tool calls, MCP tools, subagent nesting, session continuity, and cost and tokens per run. Available through openlayer.init() automatic instrumentation.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS Marketplace)coreOpenlayer is transactable through the AWS Marketplace with custom onboarding for AWS Marketplace buyers.
- Microsoft (Azure Marketplace)coreOpenlayer is available on the Azure Marketplace, with Azure managed identity supported for storage connections in on-prem deployments.
- Google Cloud MarketplacecoreOpenlayer is available on the Google Cloud Marketplace as a procurement channel for enterprise customers.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Openlayer competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Weights & Biases: Weights & Biases is a broad ML experiment tracking and MLOps platform that has expanded into LLM evaluation (W&B Weave) — comparable to Openlayer on ML evaluation, with deeper experiment-tracking roots.
- Monte Carlo: Monte Carlo is a data observability platform for data quality and pipeline monitoring — partially overlapping with Openlayer's Data Quality Monitoring module, with deeper data-engineering roots.
Direct peers
- Arize AI: Arize AI is a direct competitor in LLM and ML observability/evaluation, offering tracing, drift detection, and evaluation for production AI systems — overlapping closely with Openlayer's LLM Observability and Evaluation modules.
- LangSmith (LangChain): LangSmith is LangChain's LLM evaluation and observability suite, competing head-to-head with Openlayer for developer-led testing of LLM applications, agent traces, and prompt experiments.
- Galileo: Galileo is an LLM evaluation and observability platform targeting enterprise GenAI teams, overlapping with Openlayer's LLM Evaluation module and agent tracing capabilities.
- Fiddler AI: Fiddler AI offers ML model monitoring, explainability, and AI governance for enterprises — directly comparable to Openlayer's ML Observability and AI Governance & Compliance modules, especially in regulated industries.
- Patronus AI: Patronus AI focuses on LLM evaluation, safety testing, and hallucination detection — a direct competitor to Openlayer's LLM Evaluation and guardrails functionality.
- Comet: Comet is an MLOps platform with LLM evaluation and experiment tracking features, competing with Openlayer for AI engineering teams that need systematic model evaluation and comparison.
- WhyLabs: WhyLabs provides AI observability and monitoring for ML and LLM models, including drift detection and data quality — a direct competitor to Openlayer's ML/LLM observability and data quality modules.
Broad incumbents
- Datadog: Datadog is a large observability incumbent that has launched LLM observability features (Watchdog AI, LLM tracing) — a broad competitor that bundles AI evaluation into an installed enterprise observability stack.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Openlayer social profiles
Digital presenceOpenlayer compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance6 records
Openlayer financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Openlayer leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Openlayer funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors16 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Openlayer M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Openlayer
What does Openlayer do?
Openlayer is an AI governance and observability platform that provides offline evaluation, real-time production monitoring, automated compliance mapping, and data quality checks across LLM and traditional ML systems. It ships 100+ automated tests, real-time guardrails that prevent prompt injection, PII leakage, and hallucinations, multimodal tracing, and routing/proxying via the Openlayer Gateway, exposed through REST APIs, a CLI, Python/TypeScript SDKs, and an MCP server.
Is Openlayer a public or private company?
Openlayer is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Openlayer founded?
Openlayer was founded in 2022. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Openlayer based?
Openlayer is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Openlayer make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Subscription (Basic free tier and Enterprise custom) is the primary driver. The others are usage-based inference pricing, cloud marketplace transactions and professional services and white-glove onboarding.
Who are Openlayer's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Weights & Biases and Monte Carlo. Direct peers are Arize AI, LangSmith (LangChain), Galileo, Fiddler AI, Patronus AI, Comet and WhyLabs. Datadog is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does Openlayer have an API?
Yes. Openlayer exposes a REST API, a command-line interface (CLI), and Python and TypeScript SDKs for programmatic access. Developers can create projects, run tests, ingest datasets, and ship evaluation results programmatically, and wire Openlayer into CI/CD pipelines such as GitHub Actions. The Openlayer MCP server (released June 14, 2025) lets users run Openlayer tests directly inside IDE workflows that support the Model Context Protocol. Developer documentation is at www.openlayer.com/docs/api-reference/introduction.
What industry is Openlayer in?
Openlayer's product category is AI Governance and Observability Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAKAH, Secure Model Deployment & Runtime Protection (sandboxing, isolation). Its NAICS code is 54138.