Samurai Labs
Samurai Labs builds proprietary Neuro-Symbolic AI for proactive Trust & Safety, offering autonomous content moderation, toxic username detection, brand-safety scoring, and suicide prevention to enterprises, gaming platforms, CX vendors, and educational institutions.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Samurai Labs does
Samurai Labs is a private Trust & Safety AI company that builds proactive content moderation technology for online communities. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco with an engineering office in Gdańsk, Poland, the company employs 35+ AI developers, psychologists, and business representatives. Its core platform, Samurai Proactive Moderation, uses a proprietary Neuro-Symbolic AI architecture that combines large language models with symbolic reasoning to detect cyberviolence (profanity, sexual harassment, personal attacks, threats, cyberbullying, suicidal ideation) in real time and execute autonomous moderation actions before harm escalates; the technology is protected by six US patents and is positioned as achieving a 10x lower false positive rate than competitors. The product portfolio extends to Samurai Username Guardian (toxic username detection at signup), Toxicity Radar for Brands (brand-safety scoring for advertising channels), the One Life Project (AI-driven suicide prevention that has supported over 25,000 people in crisis on Reddit), and the JamesWalker43 counter-speech research bot.
The company sells primarily to enterprises operating large, user-generated-content platforms—including Cisco (Webex), Khoros, gaming operators (Freedom Games, Movie Games, the GTA Online Discord), and educational institutions—with annual enterprise subscriptions and API-based usage fees. Distribution is API-first with integrations into Discord, Webex, Reddit, and Khoros; the Webex App Hub certification and Khoros partnership provide additional marketplace-channel reach. Samurai Labs also pursues research and impact-driven engagements with academic and non-profit partners including Cardiff University's HateLab, INACH, University of Warsaw, and Nesta, which double as validation references and pipeline to commercial use cases.
The business is privately held with no disclosed external investors beyond a 2022 Simpact Ventures round and earlier RST Ventures For Earth participation; financial details including revenue and funding amounts are not publicly disclosed. Strategic expansion is underway into advertising/brand safety, education, and EMEA enterprise accounts, supported by an intent to pursue SOC 2 Type 2 certification to unlock larger regulated customers.
Samurai Labs firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Samurai Labs
- Legal name
- Samurai Labs Inc.
- Website
- https://samurailabs.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Samurai Labs builds proprietary Neuro-Symbolic AI for proactive Trust & Safety, offering autonomous content moderation, toxic username detection, brand-safety scoring, and suicide prevention to enterprises, gaming platforms, CX vendors, and educational institutions.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Samurai Labs industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Trust & Safety AI Software / Content Moderation
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Other Computer Related Services (541519)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Social Media & Community Moderation (BPAAALAA)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Gaming Trust & Safety (UGC, Chat, Anti-toxicity) (BPAAALAF), Messaging, Chat & Live Interaction Safety (Text/Voice/Video) (BPAAALAC), Moderation, Safety & Toxicity Detection (HDAAADAH), News & Media Comment/UGC Moderation (Comments, uploads, livestreams) (BPAAALAJ)
Keywords
Where Samurai Labs is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices3 records
Markets served
Samurai Labs business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- SaaS/Platform Subscription: Trust & Safety platform subscription with API access for content moderation services. Clients integrate Samurai's technology into their platforms for real-time moderation.
- Enterprise Licensing: Enterprise licensing model for large organizations requiring dedicated capacity and customization. Includes setup, configuration, and ongoing support.
- API-based Usage: API-based usage where Samurai processes usernames and messages via integration with client registration and content systems.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise Custom Pricing |
| Other | Pay-as-you-go | Demo Available |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels5 records
Samurai Labs product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Samurai Labs develops and sells AI-powered content moderation software that uses Neuro-Symbolic AI (LLMs combined with symbolic reasoning) to detect and autonomously act on toxic content, hate speech, cyberbullying, suicidal ideation, and offensive usernames in online communities. Its core offering is the Samurai Proactive Moderation Trust & Safety platform, supplemented by Toxicity Radar for Brands, Samurai Username Guardian, and the One Life Project suicide-prevention initiative, all delivered primarily through enterprise subscriptions and API integrations.
Product overview
Samurai Labs is a research lab offering Neuro-Symbolic AI technologies for Trust & Safety. The core platform consists of Samurai Proactive Moderation, an end-to-end content moderation system that combines large language models with symbolic reasoning to detect and prevent cyberviolence in real-time. This core platform is supplemented by specialized modules including Toxicity Radar for Brands (advertising channel safety scoring), Samurai Username Guardian (autonomous username moderation), and One Life Project (suicide prevention). The company also developed JamesWalker43, an ethical counter-speech bot for research purposes. All products leverage the same underlying neuro-symbolic AI approach protected by 6 US patents.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Samurai Guardian: Proactive AI content moderation platform for detecting and preventing online abuse, cyberbullying, and toxic behavior in real-time.
- Toxicity Radar for Brands
- Username Moderation
- Proactive Moderation
- One Life
Products and services
- Samurai Proactive Moderation End-to-end Trust & Safety platform that identifies toxic content within online communities and acts autonomously before damage is done by blocking messages, muting users, or sending nudge interventions to foster prosocial behavior. For enterprises with large online communities needing real-time automated moderation.
- Toxicity Radar for Brands Scoring system for advertising channels that evaluates creators and user comments and interactions in real time. Helps brands select suitable communication channels, evaluate campaign risks before launch, and take proactive measures to mitigate reputational damage.
- Samurai Username Guardian Autonomous username moderation service that detects toxic usernames using neuro-symbolic AI to find hidden meanings and original attempts at creating disruptive identities. Designed for community administrators and registration flows.
- One Life Project AI-powered suicide prevention initiative that detects suicidal messages on online platforms and connects people in crisis with human support networks, free resources, and anonymous help. Created in partnership with psychologists, clinical therapists, and suicidologists.
- JamesWalker43 Ethical Counter-Speech Bot Ethical bot-guardian for Reddit communities that detects personal attacks with near 100% effectiveness and sends empathy-based counter-speech interventions designed by social scientists to reduce hostile behavior.
Quantifiable outcome
- 10x lower false positive rate than competition
- +6 more outcomes
Companies that use Samurai Labs
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments6 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Samurai Labs technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration4 records
AI capability7 records
Feature6 records
Samurai Labs partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- KhoroscorePartnership to detect potentially offensive content and automatically remove it from communities without exposing moderators to stressful material. Samurai Labs integrated with Khoros API to safeguard user touchpoints including boards, forums, chats, comment sections, and consultant interactions.
- HateLab (Cardiff University)coreResearch partnership to develop AI models analyzing posts on Twitter and YouTube to detect violent speech acts against Poles. Samurai's data powers HateLab's custom dashboard for measuring violence before and after Brexit, alerting authorities to trends and immediate threats. Achieved 82.3% precision in hate speech detection.
- Webex by CiscocoreSamurai Labs developed a bot that seamlessly integrates with the Webex platform for educational institutions. The bot monitors all spaces across organizations detecting aggressive behavior, cyberbullying, suicide declarations, sexual harassment, threats, and profanity. The app has been officially certified by Webex and is available on the Webex App Hub.
- INACH (International Network Against Cyberhate)corePartnership to combat online violence and discrimination through real-time counterspeech interventions. Samurai Labs provides AI-based models for detecting online hate speech on 4chan, enabling INACH trainees to practice counter-speech skills on real cases as part of their certification course.
- Nesta Innovation AgencycoreResearch partnership to test whether cyberviolence on Reddit can be decreased by community-driven, counter-speech interventions conducted by users in partnership with AI. The experiment compared effectiveness of existing Reddit moderation versus AI-supported collective intelligence approach.
- University of Warsaw (Psychology Department)coreAcademic partnership with Prof. Michał Bilewicz and the Psychology Department to develop behavioral change interventions using AI. Collaboration combined knowledge of how to change human behavior with sophisticated AI technology to reduce online hate.
Scale indicators18 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights7 records
Samurai Labs competitors and assessment
Company assessmentOthers
- TaskUs (ModSquad): TaskUs (which acquired ModSquad) is a major BPO provider of human content moderation and Trust & Safety services, often partnering with or competing against AI moderation vendors like Samurai for enterprise contracts.
Emerging players
- Bodyguard.io: Bodyguard provides real-time AI moderation for social media and online communities (toxicity, hate speech, harassment), targeting similar SMB and enterprise buyers as Samurai's Proactive Moderation.
- Lasso Moderation: Lasso is an AI content moderation platform focused on UGC platforms with keyword filtering, customizable rules, and dashboard tooling - an emerging competitor to Samurai in the social/community moderation niche.
Broad incumbents
- Microsoft Azure Content Moderator: Microsoft's native content moderation API within Azure AI offers text, image, and video moderation as part of a broader cloud platform - a broad incumbent competitor that bundles moderation into enterprise infrastructure deals.
- Google Perspective API: Google's Perspective API uses ML to score toxicity in online conversations, offered as a free-to-use service within Google's broader AI portfolio - a broad incumbent alternative for platforms seeking basic toxicity detection.
Direct peers
- ActiveFence: ActiveFence is a leading Trust & Safety AI platform offering content moderation, threat intelligence, and brand protection APIs to platforms and enterprises - directly comparable to Samurai's Proactive Moderation and Toxicity Radar offerings across the same buyer segments.
- Besedo: Besedo offers AI and human hybrid content moderation services for marketplaces, dating, gaming, and social platforms, with similar enterprise customers and Trust & Safety value proposition as Samurai Labs.
- Two Hat Security (now Spectrum Labs): Spectrum Labs (formerly Two Hat) provides AI content moderation specifically for online communities, social platforms, and gaming - directly competing with Samurai Guardian in the same proactive moderation category.
- Hive Moderation: Hive provides AI-powered content moderation APIs (text, image, video) with pre-trained classifiers for toxicity, hate speech, and NSFW, targeting platforms and enterprises in the same customer set as Samurai Labs.
- WebPurify: WebPurify offers hybrid AI and human image, video, and text moderation services targeting platforms and enterprises - a direct comparable in the outsourced Trust & Safety services category where Samurai competes.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Samurai Labs social profiles
Digital presenceSamurai Labs compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance2 records
Samurai Labs financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Samurai Labs leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles5 records
Samurai Labs funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors2 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Samurai Labs M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A1 record
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Samurai Labs
What does Samurai Labs do?
Samurai Labs develops and sells AI-powered content moderation software that uses Neuro-Symbolic AI (LLMs combined with symbolic reasoning) to detect and autonomously act on toxic content, hate speech, cyberbullying, suicidal ideation, and offensive usernames in online communities. Its core offering is the Samurai Proactive Moderation Trust & Safety platform, supplemented by Toxicity Radar for Brands, Samurai Username Guardian, and the One Life Project suicide-prevention initiative, all delivered primarily through enterprise subscriptions and API integrations.
Is Samurai Labs a public or private company?
Samurai Labs is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Samurai Labs founded?
Samurai Labs was founded in 2018. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Samurai Labs based?
Samurai Labs is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Samurai Labs make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. SaaS/Platform Subscription is the primary driver. The others are enterprise Licensing and API-based Usage.
Who are Samurai Labs's main competitors?
TaskUs (ModSquad) is listed as an others. Emerging players are Bodyguard.io and Lasso Moderation. Broad incumbents are Microsoft Azure Content Moderator and Google Perspective API. Direct peers are ActiveFence, Besedo, Two Hat Security (now Spectrum Labs), Hive Moderation and WebPurify.
Does Samurai Labs have an API?
Yes. Username Moderation API offered to enterprise clients for integration with their registration and username creation processes. Clients such as Freedom Games integrate the API to automatically moderate and filter toxic usernames during user signup.
What industry is Samurai Labs in?
Samurai Labs's product category is Trust & Safety AI Software / Content Moderation. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAAALAA, Social Media & Community Moderation, with a secondary code of BPAAALAF, Gaming Trust & Safety (UGC, Chat, Anti-toxicity). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7371.