API security: Escape raises 3.6 million euros

The French startup Escape, specialized in AI-simulated API penetration tests, announced a 3.6 million euro fundraising campaign on June 6, 2023. According to Tristan Kalos, founder and head of Escape, APIs are the Achilles’ heel of many web and mobile apps in terms of cybersecurity.

Launched in September 2020, and accelerated by the US incubator, Y Combinator, the startup developed a vulnerability detection algorithm. Inspired by chess and go algorithms, it tracks an API’s vulnerabilities during its design phase. “Our AI simulates a hacker’s behavior. It communicates with the API, learning as the tests progress to find flaws,” explains Tristan Kalos.

Escape’s greatest strength lies in the speed of its analysis tool, which is said to flush out vulnerabilities in one to two minutes. This velocity should allow developers to carry out complete new tests before each app update.

After spending a year in development, Escape’s solution saw its commercial launch in fall of 2022. A thousand businesses are said to have tested its prototypes, particularly its free analysis tool. Today, it has around twenty paying customers, who are charged according to the number of their developers. Among them are Shine, a neobank, Sorare, the French football NFT unicorn, and Neo4j, a British database management system.

Iris, FRST and Kima Ventures investment funds contributed to the operation, which will enable Escape to double its workforce (currently 10 employees) and accelerate its growth abroad, particularly by opening a branch in the United States. The startup just launched a new tool for plugins to integrate ChatGPT with other services.