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Kansas City-based TripleBlind Inc. hired its first outside CEO, who can envision the company potentially going public.
Co-founder Riddhiman Das, now chief product officer, handed his CEO title to Prat Moghe, a former executive vice president and general manager of Cloudera, an enterprise data management and analytics software company in Santa Clara, California, that sold in 2021 for about $5.3 billion. Moghe also is a serial entrepreneur.
Moghe will focus on expanding TripleBlind’s employee and customer base and product offerings. The startup employs about 50, but in the next three years, he expects the headcount to reach 100 employees.
"We're in the very early days, but I'd love to build a public company," Moghe said.
TripleBlind developed artificial intelligence (AI) privacy software that allows enterprises, such as hospitals and financial institutions, to securely share regulated and private data, without decrypting it or introducing additional risk and liabilities. A goal is to enable entities to securely use AI algorithms with de-identified data, which in health care can be used to improve patient outcomes. The startup has worked with entities such as the Mayo Clinic and AI company Sentier Analytics and has raised multiple funding rounds, including a $24 million Series A in 2021.
In 2022, TripleBlind hired another notable executive, CTO Craig Gentry, who has won coveted awards for his cryptography work. He's world-renowned, Moghe said, but he's just one example of TripleBlind's "world-class team."
After Cloudera, Moghe was on the hunt for his next opportunity and had considered launching another startup. Through common investors, however, he met Das, and the two hit it off. And Moghe was impressed with TripleBlind's technology.
"These are not technologies that are easy to build or prove. When you go to a customer or partners, there's a huge hurdle to climb with convincing people and making them feel this thing works," Moghe said. "They've kind of gone through that hurdle now. They've proven this technology."
A growing number of companies want to take advantage of AI's capabilities, such as automation and improving the customer experience, but AI privacy is complex, he said. Companies are reticent to input sensitive corporate data into platforms like ChatGPT. Those AI privacy concerns, however, have become "the perfect storm" for TripleBlind's tech offering. The company can be the "privacy guard," monitoring and auditing data to keep it secure.
"The market is huge. This is one of the reasons why I took this over several other options on the table," Moghe said. "If we execute this well, this could become a public company."