Alice raises $140m to expand AI model defences

AI trust, safety and security company Alice has raised $140m in a funding round led by Apax Digital Funds, with participation from MoreTech, Phoenix Financial, Resolute Ventures, Grove Ventures, CRV, Highland Europe, Vintage Investments, Norwest, NFX and Claltech. The round brings the firm’s total funding to $280m.

Alice, formerly known as ActiveFence, works with AI developers to stress-test foundational models before release, using mock malicious inputs and complex agentic tasks to expose erratic behaviours and harden models against prompt injection and jailbreak attempts. In production, it offers continuous red-teaming and dynamic runtime guardrails, supported by a proprietary database called Rabbit Hole built from nearly a decade of tracking digital fraud, ideological extremism and manipulation campaigns.

The company also runs a research facility with more than 150 specialists who study machine learning vulnerabilities and collaborate with major model developers. CEO Noam Schwartz said the funding will help close the gap between democratised AI capabilities and defences.