Protecto
Protecto is an AI-native runtime data security platform that detects and masks PII, PHI, and PCI across LLM prompts, RAG pipelines, and agent tool calls. It serves regulated enterprises in healthcare, financial services, and B2B SaaS via subscription and usage-based pricing, with deployments at organizations including Dell, Automation Anywhere, Inovalon, and Bank of Muscat.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersSan Jose, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Protecto does
Protecto is an AI-native runtime data security platform purpose-built for Agentic AI workloads, headquartered in San Jose and founded in 2021 by Amar Kanagaraj. The platform detects, masks, and tokenizes PII, PHI, PCI, and other confidential data across LLM prompts, RAG pipelines, agent tool calls, and AI outputs in real time, using a proprietary DeepSight semantic detection engine and entropy-based context-preserving tokenization that keeps >85% cosine similarity on downstream LLM reasoning. Core capabilities are organized around Protecto Vault (tokenization), CBAC (Context-Based Access Control for inference-time policy enforcement), DeepSight (detection with custom entity extension), Secure RAG, High-Volume Data Masking, and GPTGuard (secure enterprise chat with OCR and HyperSearch RAG), all delivered through SaaS, customer VPC, or on-premises/air-gapped deployment.
The company targets regulated, data-intensive verticals — primarily healthcare (Inovalon, unnamed health insurer at 50M+ PHI records, hospital networks), financial services (Bank of Muscat, top-tier Middle Eastern financial institution), and B2B SaaS — where traditional DLP and perimeter security cannot follow data into prompts and agent memory. Government and AI agent platform developers are positioned as secondary segments. Protecto holds SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA (with BAA), GDPR, DPDP, and PDPL/SAMA certifications and maintains an immutable audit trail mapped to GDPR Art. 30 and HIPAA OCR. Named enterprise customers also include Automation Anywhere and Dell, with case-study claims of 3,000+ enterprises protected, 1M+ AI interactions, and 99.9% claimed detection accuracy.
Go-to-market blends direct enterprise field sales targeting CISOs, CTOs, and AI infrastructure leaders with an API-first product-led motion offering free trial, single-function-call integration into LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Snowflake, Databricks, and others. Revenue is generated through quote-based annual/multi-year SaaS subscriptions and usage-based API consumption, with entry-level pricing from $250/month and enterprise deployments scaling to $200K+/year. Protecto raised a $4M seed round in November 2023 led by Together Fund (with Arali Ventures, Better Capital, FortyTwo VC, and Speciale Invest), was accepted into Google's AI First accelerator in India in September 2025, and added a Citrix NetScaler AI Gateway partnership in April 2026 alongside the December 2025 launch of Protecto Vault and the April 2026 release of GPTGuard 2.0.
Protecto firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Protecto
- Legal name
- Protecto
- Website
- https://protecto.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Protecto is an AI-native runtime data security platform that detects and masks PII, PHI, and PCI across LLM prompts, RAG pipelines, and agent tool calls. It serves regulated enterprises in healthcare, financial services, and B2B SaaS via subscription and usage-based pricing, with deployments at organizations including Dell, Automation Anywhere, Inovalon, and Bank of Muscat.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Protecto industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI Data Security / Data Privacy Platform
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Responsible AI, Security & Privacy Platforms (Safety, Guardrails, PII) (HDAEANAG)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Secure Model Deployment & Runtime Protection (sandboxing, isolation) (HDAAAKAH), Confidential AI & Privacy-Preserving ML (federated learning, MPC, HE, TEEs) (HDAAAKAI), Identity & Access Security Services (IAM, PAM, Zero Trust) (BPAKAHAI)
Keywords
Where Protecto is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Jose
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Protecto business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- SaaS Subscription (Platform Licenses): Enterprise-grade SaaS platform sold as annual or multi-year subscriptions. Pricing is quote-based and tiered based on volume (documents processed, API calls, users). Deployment options include SaaS, private VPC, and on-premises.
- API Usage (Volume-based): Usage-based consumption for API calls covering real-time, async, and bulk processing. Supports high-volume workflows (billions of rows for data lake migrations, 50M+ PHI records per customer).
- Platform Licensing: Enterprise platform licensing with pricing from approximately $250/month for smaller teams, scaling to $200K+/year for large enterprise deployments. Licensing replaces in-house build costs estimated at $500K+ and 18 months of development time.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Entry-level SaaS platform licensing |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise platform (DIY comparison) |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Self-serve trial |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels6 records
Protecto product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Protecto provides an AI-native runtime data security platform for Agentic AI that detects PII, PHI, PCI, and confidential enterprise data across LLM prompts, RAG pipelines, agent tool calls, and AI outputs, then replaces those values with context-preserving tokens so the underlying LLM can continue to reason accurately. The platform combines a sensitive-data detection engine (DeepSight), a tokenization and de-tokenization Privacy Vault, Context-Based Access Control (CBAC) enforced at inference time, an immutable audit trail, and pre-built compliance coverage for HIPAA, GDPR, DPDP, PDPL/SAMA, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001. It is delivered as SaaS, customer VPC, or on-premises deployment and integrates natively with OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, Google Gemini, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Snowflake, Databricks, and the Citrix NetScaler AI Gateway.
Product overview
Protecto is an AI-native data protection platform built around a single unified runtime data control plane. The core platform provides tokenization (Privacy Vault), real-time RBAC (CBAC), and a detection engine (DeepSight) as foundational capabilities, with specialized modules for Secure RAG pipelines, high-volume batch masking, and enterprise secure chat (GPTGuard). The portfolio is designed as a platform-plus-modules architecture where the Privacy Vault and CBAC form the core enforcement layer, DeepSight extends detection coverage with custom patterns, and products like GPTGuard and High-Volume Masking serve specific use cases (secure enterprise chat and bulk data processing respectively) on top of the same underlying control plane.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Protecto Vault: Enterprise-grade data privacy vault platform that scans, masks, and stores sensitive data for AI pipelines
- GPTGuard
- CBAC
- DeepSight
Products and services
- Protecto Platform (Runtime Data Security for Agentic AI) Unified runtime data control plane platform that detects and protects PII, PHI, and business-confidential data across LLMs, agents, MCP pipelines, and AI gateways. Provides one policy enforcement engine, one vault for tokenization, and one platform for audit, compliance, admin controls, and multi-tenant governance. Integrates across the AI stack without architectural changes in days.
- Privacy Vault Enterprise-grade data privacy vault that scans, masks, and stores sensitive data and de-tokenizes on demand for authorized users. Scans 200+ PII/PHI entity types in 50+ languages across structured tables and unstructured text, delivering 99.9% detection accuracy with sub-week deployment time and support for real-time, async, and bulk APIs.
- GPTGuard Enterprise secure chat product enabling users to chat with any AI on enterprise documents without risking sensitive data exposure. Uses HyperSearch RAG for uploading unlimited files, OCR for image-to-text, context source tracking, and multiple LLM model support while applying context-preserving masking to keep AI responses accurate.
- CBAC (Context-Based Access Control for AI) Context-Based Access Control layer that ingests unstructured data for AI and enforces the right access at runtime. Structures unstructured data for AI at ingestion and enforces role-based access decisions at runtime based on user, role, task, and policy, providing sentence-level granularity across documents with different views per role per same source document.
Quantifiable outcome
- 99.9% PII/PHI detection accuracy (claimed)
- +11 more outcomes
Companies that use Protecto
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles5 records
Protecto technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration25 records
AI capability10 records
Feature7 records
Protecto partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.
- Citrix (Cloud Software Group)coreProtecto is integrated into Citrix NetScaler AI Gateway as a confirmed partner, bringing enterprise governance, cost control, and security to AI application delivery workloads. The integration enables token-based rate limiting, token-latency-based load balancing, spillover routing, and prompt management for LLM cost and performance management. Both NetScaler AI Gateway and the NetScaler Console MCP Server are available now.
- GoogleflagshipProtecto was selected from 1,600+ applicants as one of 20 startups in Google's 'Google for Startups Accelerator: AI First' program in India. The program covers healthcare, finance, climate, and education sectors and provides Google Cloud infrastructure, Gemini model access, technical mentorship, and go-to-market support. The program's strategic focus aligns with IndiaAI Mission's startup pillar.
Scale indicators12 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Protecto competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Sentra: Sentra provides data security posture management for cloud data and AI workloads, including sensitive data discovery for LLM pipelines. They are an emerging competitor in the same data-layer security-for-AI category as Protecto.
Direct peers
- Private AI: Private AI offers privacy-preserving ML and PII detection/redaction across text, audio, and documents in 50+ languages. They compete head-to-head with DeepSight on multilingual detection and with Protecto's masking capabilities for AI pipelines.
- Securiti: Securiti is a direct competitor offering a unified data privacy, governance, and AI security platform with PII detection, masking, and consent management. They compete for the same enterprise CISO buyers in regulated industries and overlap on AI data governance positioning.
- Calypso AI: Calypso AI is an AI security platform focused on LLM and agent protection, including prompt injection defense and AI observability. Protecto defeated Calypso AI in a head-to-head evaluation for a Middle Eastern bank, indicating direct overlap in the enterprise LLM security market.
- Cyera: Cyera is an AI-powered data security platform providing data discovery, classification, and posture management for cloud and AI workloads. They compete in the same enterprise data security category with overlapping positioning around AI-era data governance.
- Enkrypt AI: Enkrypt AI provides AI security, safety, and compliance tooling for enterprise LLM deployments. They were co-announced alongside Protecto as integration partners for Citrix NetScaler AI Gateway, confirming direct overlap in agentic AI security.
- Skyflow: Skyflow operates a data privacy vault that tokenizes and isolates sensitive PII/PHI/PCI data, with APIs for AI and LLM integrations. Their vault-based architecture competes directly with Protecto's Privacy Vault product for the same enterprise security buyers.
Broad incumbents
- OneTrust: OneTrust is a large incumbent in privacy, security, and data governance with broad consent management and data mapping capabilities. They overlap with Protecto on enterprise privacy compliance but lack Protecto's AI-specific runtime data security depth.
- BigID: BigID is an established data intelligence and privacy platform with data discovery, classification, and AI governance capabilities. As a broader incumbent, they offer overlapping PII discovery and compliance features across the same regulated buyer base.
Others
- Microsoft Presidio: Presidio is Microsoft's open-source PII detection and anonymization library. Protecto explicitly benchmarks against and claims to outperform Presidio on precision, making it a primary open-source alternative that Protecto must displace in enterprise evaluations.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Protecto social profiles
Digital presenceProtecto compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance8 records
Protecto financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Protecto leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Protecto funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors5 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Protecto 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 Protecto
What does Protecto do?
Protecto provides an AI-native runtime data security platform for Agentic AI that detects PII, PHI, PCI, and confidential enterprise data across LLM prompts, RAG pipelines, agent tool calls, and AI outputs, then replaces those values with context-preserving tokens so the underlying LLM can continue to reason accurately. The platform combines a sensitive-data detection engine (DeepSight), a tokenization and de-tokenization Privacy Vault, Context-Based Access Control (CBAC) enforced at inference time, an immutable audit trail, and pre-built compliance coverage for HIPAA, GDPR, DPDP, PDPL/SAMA, CCPA/CPRA, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001. It is delivered as SaaS, customer VPC, or on-premises deployment and integrates natively with OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, Google Gemini, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Snowflake, Databricks, and the Citrix NetScaler AI Gateway.
Is Protecto a public or private company?
Protecto is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Protecto founded?
Protecto was founded in 2021. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Protecto based?
Protecto is headquartered in San Jose, United States, in the North America region.
How does Protecto make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. SaaS Subscription (Platform Licenses) is the primary driver. The others are API Usage (Volume-based) and platform Licensing.
Who are Protecto's main competitors?
Sentra is listed as an emerging player. Direct peers are Private AI, Securiti, Calypso AI, Cyera, Enkrypt AI and Skyflow. Broad incumbents are OneTrust and BigID. Microsoft Presidio is listed as an others.
Does Protecto have an API?
Yes. Protecto offers RESTful APIs, Python SDK, real-time async APIs, and bulk APIs for processing billions of rows. The platform provides turnkey APIs for real-time, async, and bulk masking workflows. Example call: protecto.scan(text, entities=['SSN','PHI','PCI']). Developer documentation is at docs.protecto.ai/docs/welcome-to-protecto.
What industry is Protecto in?
Protecto's product category is AI Data Security / Data Privacy Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAEANAG, Responsible AI, Security & Privacy Platforms (Safety, Guardrails, PII), with a secondary code of HDAAAKAH, Secure Model Deployment & Runtime Protection (sandboxing, isolation). Its NAICS code is 5415 and its SIC code is 7372.