Agita Labs

What Agita Labs does

Agita Labs is a privately held, University of Michigan-born startup founded in November 2018 to commercialize DARPA-sponsored secure computing research into a privacy-enhanced computation platform. The company, headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, operates with a team of 1-10 employees (six named publicly) co-led by UMich professors Todd Austin (CEO) and Valeria Bertacco (Chief Scientist), both IEEE Fellows with prior Intel and DARPA affiliations.

Its core product, TrustForge, is a programming framework that wraps Sequestered Encryption (SE), a patented hardware-based cryptographic architecture co-developed with Intel and DARPA. The SE enclave operates directly on encrypted program data using industry-standard public-key cryptography, exposing no decryption key to software, the OS, or any cloud operator. TrustForge is deployed on Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS using FPGA-class nodes, and on-premises via Intel-Altera CPUs, with SDK extensions for C++, Python, and JavaScript that allow developers to declare encrypted data types inline. Additional capabilities include computational fingerprinting (integrity verification), guardrailing (change detection), and Safe Datagrants (selective plaintext release), which the company positions as enabling zero-trust data sharing and HIPAA/GDPR compliance.

Agita Labs monetizes through TrustForge cloud subscriptions on Azure and AWS and enterprise on-premises licensing. The product reached closed beta on Azure in May 2022, with no public pricing and no named customers disclosed. GTM is enterprise field sales focused on regulated verticals (healthcare, financial, genomics, government, medical research). The company has raised approximately $3M in a seed round (Intel Capital, Walden International) plus an NSF grant, with strategic backing from Intel Corporation, DARPA, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Name

Agita Labs

Legal name

Agita Labs

Website

https://agitalabs.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Agita Labs, founded in 2018 from the University of Michigan, commercializes Sequestered Encryption hardware through its TrustForge platform, enabling always-encrypted computation in Azure and AWS clouds for enterprises in healthcare, financial, genomics, government, and medical research.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Privacy-Enhanced Computation Platform

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Confidential Computing & Hardware-backed Protection (TEE/HSM) (HDADAFAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Secure Collaboration & Data Sharing (IRM/DRM, Secure Workspaces) (HDADAFAM), Confidential AI & Privacy-Preserving ML (federated learning, MPC, HE, TEEs) (HDAAAKAI)

Keywords

• Privacy-enhanced computation
• Hardware-based encryption
• Zero-trust data sharing
• Secure cloud computing
• Data security platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Ann Arbor

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. TrustForge Cloud Platform Subscription: TrustForge is accessed as a cloud-based privacy-enhanced computation platform deployed in Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Revenue appears to come from licensing access to the TrustForge platform and its secure computation capabilities, likely on a subscription or usage basis for enterprise customers.
2. Enterprise Licensing (On-Premises): TrustForge can be deployed on-premises with Intel-Altera CPUs for organizations requiring local deployment, providing an additional licensing pathway for enterprise customers.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Agita Labs builds and sells the TrustForge privacy-enhanced computation platform, which uses patented Sequestered Encryption hardware enclaves deployed in Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS to perform secure computation directly on always-encrypted data. The platform enables organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, genomics, and government to share and analyze sensitive data with cryptographic-strength defenses against software hacking, side-channel, and supply chain attacks. Programmers interact with TrustForge through SDKs for C++, Python, and JavaScript to build zero-trust data sharing applications.

Product overview

Agita Labs offers a unified privacy-enhanced computation platform centered on TrustForge, which integrates the core sequestered encryption technology. TrustForge is the main product—a programming framework that provides secure computation capabilities including data encryption, encrypted computation, guardrailing, and safe datagrants. The platform is delivered as a cloud service (Azure, AWS) with accompanying SDKs for C++, Python, and JavaScript, and includes VIP-Bench reference benchmarks. Sequestered encryption serves as the underlying patented hardware technology that powers all TrustForge capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• TrustForge: Agita Labs' flagship privacy-enhanced technology (PET) product that supports secure computation on always-encrypted sensitive data, including encrypted and verified computation and safe datagrants. It is a programming framework for building zero-trust data sharing applications deployed in Azure and AWS clouds.

Products and services

• TrustForge Privacy-Enhanced Computation Platform Privacy-enhanced computation platform that lets developers build zero-trust data sharing applications performing secure computation directly on always-encrypted data. Deployed in Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS clouds, with SDKs for C++, Python, and JavaScript. Targets enterprise customers in healthcare, financial services, government, and genomics.
• TrustForge SDK Software development kit providing programming language interfaces for C++, Python, and JavaScript, enabling developers to declare protected encrypted data types and build zero-trust data sharing applications on top of the TrustForge platform.
• Sequestered Encryption (SE) Enclave Patented hardware-based cryptographic security component that builds a cryptographic wall between all software and sensitive data, performing encrypted computation directly on always-encrypted data without access to a decryption key. Deployed in Azure and AWS using FPGA-class nodes and on-premises via Intel-Altera CPUs.

Quantifiable outcome

• 1000X faster than other well-known privacy-enhancing technologies
• +2 more outcomes

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• DARPAcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 July 2020Agita Labs works with DARPA to develop next-generation security and privacy defenses based on technologies developed in the DARPA-sponsored Morpheus project at University of Michigan. The company was funded by a DARPA SSITH commercialization contract. Profs. Austin and Bertacco participated in the DARPA FETT Challenge, which pitted their hardware security technology against 535 cybersecurity researchers for 3 months with no successful breaches.
• Intel CorporationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 July 2020Intel co-developed sequestered encryption technology with Agita Labs. The company partnered with Intel on hardware security deployment platforms. Intel-Altera CPUs support on-premises TrustForge deployments. Intel Capital invested in the $3M seed round.
• Microsoft AzurecoreTechnology or IntegrationAgita Labs worked with Microsoft to deploy sequestered encryption technology into the Azure cloud. TrustForge enclaves are deployed using FPGA-class nodes in Azure. In October 2021, the tech team successfully ran the first program on the sequestered encryption enclave on Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
• Amazon AWScoreTechnology or IntegrationAgita Labs worked with Amazon to deploy sequestered encryption technology into the AWS cloud. TrustForge enclaves are deployed using FPGA-class nodes in AWS.
• TechBrewery IncubatorminorOthersAgita Labs participated in the TechBrewery Incubator program in Ann Arbor, where Alex Kisil was based at the incubator desk in February 2019.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Duality Technologies: Duality Technologies provides homomorphic encryption-based secure data collaboration for regulated enterprises in healthcare, financial services, and government—directly comparable to Agita's TrustForge use cases around privacy-preserving computation and zero-trust data sharing.
• Enveil: Enveil delivers a Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) platform using homomorphic encryption to enable secure search, analytics, and machine learning on encrypted data, overlapping with Agita's TrustForge encrypted computation value proposition.
• Inpher: Inpher builds secret-computation platforms combining secure multi-party computation and homomorphic encryption for privacy-preserving analytics and ML across financial and healthcare customers—adjacent PET technology competing for the same zero-trust data sharing workload.
• TripleBlind: TripleBlind offers a privacy-preserving ML platform using multi-party computation for data collaboration and AI model training, targeting regulated industries similar to Agita's healthcare, financial, and genomics segments.

Emerging players

• Zama: Zama develops fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) tooling, including Concrete-ML, aimed at privacy-preserving AI and on-chain confidential compute—competes in the same secure-computation frontier as Agita's sequestered encryption approach.
• Opaque Systems: Opaque enables confidential AI and analytics on encrypted data using a hardware-backed enclave plus encrypted compute stack, closely mirroring Agita's TrustForge confidential-compute-on-encrypted-data model.
• Cape Privacy: Cape Privacy (now part of claims-adjacent confidential AI tooling) built privacy-preserving ML and data collaboration tools; comparable as an emerging PET player pursuing encrypted computation workflows in regulated verticals.
• Cornami: Cornami builds scalable computing architectures aimed at accelerating fully homomorphic encryption and confidential compute workloads—an emerging infrastructure peer pursuing the same high-performance PET promise Agita makes for TrustForge.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Azure Confidential Computing: Microsoft's Azure Confidential Computing offers TEE-based secure enclaves (Intel SGX, AMD SEV, NVIDIA CC) inside the same cloud where Agita distributes TrustForge—a powerful incumbent partner/competitor shaping the broader confidential compute category.
• Intel SGX / Intel Confidential Computing: Intel SGX and Intel's broader confidential computing silicon are foundational TEEs that compete with Agita's SE enclave on hardware-backed secure computation; Intel is also an investor and partner, making this a co-opetitive peer relationship.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/agita-labs

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Agita Labs