UCD spin-out Mirror Security secures €2.1 million to advance FHE-based AI security in collaboration with Intel

Mirror Security, a research-driven cybersecurity company spun out of University College Dublin, has raised €2.1 million ($2.5 million) in pre-Seed funding to scale its encryption platform for AI Security.

The round was led by Sure Valley Ventures (SVV) and Atlantic Bridge, with support from strategic angel investors.

Pankaj Thapa, co-founder and CEO, Mirror Security, says: “AI is transforming productivity and reshaping industries, but unsecured data flows pose an urgent risk that threatens to stall adoption. With VectaX, we replace policy-based trust with cryptographic proof, ensuring that sensitive information remains encrypted even during computation. Our mission is bigger than protecting data – we are building the trust layer for the AI economy.“

In 2025, several European companies working in adjacent areas of cryptography and AI-security also secured new funding, illustrating the wider context for Mirror Security’s pre-Seed round.

Austria’s Quantum Industries raised €9.5 million to advance quantum-secure communications for critical infrastructure, reflecting continued investor interest in next-generation data-protection frameworks. In France, Zama secured €49 million to scale fully homomorphic encryption for confidential smart-contract execution, signalling strong confidence in encrypted-compute technologies. Also in Paris, Zaiffer raised €2 million to develop a confidential-token protocol applying FHE to regulated digital-asset environments.

Together, these companies account for more than €60 million in related 2025 activity, showing clear momentum behind cryptography-centric infrastructure.

Mirror Security’s focus on encrypted AI computation therefore aligns with a broader European shift toward privacy-preserving systems, with its Irish base also noteworthy given the presence of other regional activity in security and encryption technologies.

“Just as the internet required a secure foundation to scale, AI now demands a new security paradigm. Mirror Security is pioneering that paradigm, enabling enterprises and governments to innovate confidently, knowing their data, strategies, and sovereignty are protected by design. We believe this is the cornerstone for AI’s next decade of growth,” adds Thapa.

Founded in 2024 by Pankaj Thapa and Dr Aditya Narayana K, Mirror combines world-class academic research with enterprise-grade execution.

Its integrated “Security of AI” platform delivers a protection suite with the following features:

• AgentIQ: full-spectrum agentic security for single-task executors to complex multi-agent swarms.
• DiscoveR: automated red teaming to continuously probe and harden AI systems.
• VectaX: a production-ready fully homomorphic encryption engine optimised for AI workloads.

Mirror looks to address what it identifies as one of the most urgent problems in enterprise AI adoption – the lack of reliable data confidentiality in model training and inference.

As organisations integrate AI into their operations, the risk of exposing proprietary data during AI processing has surged. Mirror aims to solve this through its Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology, VectaX, which allows AI systems to process sensitive data while keeping it completely encrypted.

Barry Downes, Managing Partner, Sure Valley Ventures comments: “Mirror Security is building the encryption layer for AI – setting a new standard for how data is protected across the AI ecosystem. Its technology enables the secure processing of encrypted data, creating a foundation for the next generation of enterprise AI. We look forward to supporting the Mirror team as they scale this breakthrough technology globally.”

The Company is also announcing a multi-million-dollar strategic agreement with Inception AI, a G42 company and leading innovator of agentic AI solutions.

Under the partnership, Mirror will deploy its full AI security stack across Inception’s enterprise and government ecosystem, enabling secure, scalable AI adoption globally. Mirror has also forged strategic partnerships with Intel, MongoDB, Qdrant, SiSys AI & Accops.

Weili Wang, Investor at Atlantic Bridge adds: “Data security remains one of the most significant hurdles to AI adoption, with organisations concerned about exposing proprietary information during model training and inference. Mirror Security’s differentiated FHE technology provides a unique solution for secure AI deployment without compromise. We are delighted to partner with the team and support this mission through our global network of cybersecurity and AI leaders.”

The funding will be used to expand engineering and AI security teams in Ireland, the US, and India, accelerate product development in encrypted inferencing and secure fine-tuning, and drive immediate expansion into US enterprise markets.

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