AI-risk management specialist secures $1.5M pre-seed capital

ETH Spinoff Calvin Risk has built Calvin, a risk management system centred around a company’s AI inventory (i.e. the sum total of all algorithms developed for commercial use). Companies can quantify the technical, ethical, and regulatory risks of their AI portfolio by completing the platform’s adaptive assessment tasks at each stage in an algorithm’s lifecycle. The platform also calculates the probability of an adverse incident and the potential costs of those risks to provide an overview and insights into the change in risk levels over time and other vital factors – for individual algorithms and the portfolio.

The startup focuses specifically on the insurance, pharmaceuticals and tech industries, enabling team leads, managers, heads of functions, and risk teams to benefit from the overview that the Calvin platform provides. The tool allows them to continuously monitor their entire AI efforts across all departments of an organisation and automatically report on the status of their AI portfolio.

“An organisation profits most from our platform if their AI efforts are fairly mature. An example is a company that has already developed and deployed some algorithms but wants to improve its quality and standardisation and professionalise the roll-out process”, says Julian Riebartsch, CEO of Calvin Risk. “Furthermore, the more ubiquitous AI becomes at larger organisations, the greater the benefit of our product”. Several companies have expressed interest in the “Calvin” risk management platform.

Unlocking the full potential of AI
The recently incorporated startup is helping address a significant issue that companies face in handling AI projects, as many AI algorithms being developed today are not commercially viable. A variety of risks inherent in the development and deployment of AI make it challenging to transition models created in the lab to AI-enabled products that work in the real world. Moreover increasing trust, acceptance, and understanding of the risks will become critical for adopting AI across industries. With their solution, Calvin Risk is on a mission to unlock the full potential of AI for business by managing several risks.

The upcoming regulations, such as the EU AI law, make AI governance and risk management a top priority for corporate decision-makers. These changes will thus increase demand for products such as Calvin, which can shorten deployment cycles through efficient and trusted assessment processes while ensuring a company complies with such new regulations.

Fresh funds to accelerate the next phase
The funds from the pre-seed financing round will be used to expand the research and development team and validate the risk quantification approach for the insurance, pharmaceutical and high-tech industries. The investors, Wingmann Ventures and btov Partners are Swiss-based venture capital firms focusing on technology startups.

(Press release/RAN)