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Research Report
Designing AI-First Systems for Customer Access
Key Takeaways
- OPAQUE secured $24M Series B led by Walden Catalyst, bringing total funding to $55.5 million.
- The platform focuses on runtime verification, policy enforcement and cryptographic proof to close the AI trust gap.
- The company is expanding into confidential AI agents and post-quantum security to support regulated industries.
Today's enterprises need a way to deploy AI on sensitive data without compromising privacy or compliance. OPAQUE believes they have the solution.
OPAQUE, a San Francisco-based confidential AI company, announced on Feb. 12 that it raised $24 million in Series B funding led by Walden Catalyst. The round values the company at approximately $300 million post-money.
Returning investors Intel Capital, Race Capital, Storm Ventures and Thomvest participated alongside new strategic partner Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). According to company officials, the funding will accelerate delivery of OPAQUE's Confidential AI platform, which aims to provide verifiable proof that data privacy, model integrity and policy enforcement remain intact before, during and after runtime.
"The real barrier to enterprise AI is trust. AI won't scale unless organizations can verify, not just assume, that their data and models are protected. Confidential AI closes the trust gap by delivering runtime proof that data stayed private during computation, model weights were never exposed and policies were enforced exactly as written."
- Aaron Fulkerson
CEO, OPAQUE
Table of Contents
- What OPAQUE'S Confidential AI Platform Offers
- From Startup to Strategic Player in 12 Months
- Enterprise AI's Trust Crisis
- OPAQUE Background
What OPAQUE'S Confidential AI Platform Offers
Rather than treating governance as an external control, OPAQUE builds verification into the runtime itself. Below are the core safeguards designed to protect sensitive AI workloads:
| Control Layer | How It Works |
|---|---|
| Runtime Governance | Cryptographic proof that data and models remain private during computation |
| Policy Enforcement | Verifiable confirmation that policies executed as written |
| OPAQUE Studio | Development environment for confidential AI agents with auditability |
| Post-Quantum Security | Expansion into quantum-resistant encryption methods |
| Sovereign Cloud Support | Deployment options for regulated sovereign environments |
From Startup to Strategic Player in 12 Months
OPAQUE's credibility received substantial boosts through strategic partnerships and industry recognition in 2025. In March, Accenture Ventures made a strategic investment and committed to embedding OPAQUE's platform into its AI Refinery and Trusted Data Services offerings.
Third-party validation followed with CB Insights naming OPAQUE in its AI 100 list in April, and IDC designating the company a Major Player in its 2025 Data Clean Room Technology MarketScape in May.
The company also expanded its product portfolio in 2025. It debuted on Microsoft Azure Marketplace in April. Then, in June, it launched identical Agents with turnkey RAG workflows, which allow enterprises to query sensitive data while maintaining privacy guarantees.
By October, the company introduced OPAQUE Studio, a development environment for building confidential AI agents with runtime-verifiable trust guarantees.
Enterprise AI's Trust Crisis
Only 22% of companies are "future-ready" with their data infrastructure
Enterprises deploying AI on sensitive data must prove traceability and accountability through runtime verification and immutable evidence trails. Maintaining clear data lineage has become one essential for compliance and audit requirements.
Confidential AI platforms address this by embedding governance directly into the AI lifecycle. Every inference can be traced back to its source data and logic through:
- Decision logs
- Model cards
- Provenance tracking
Despite widespread AI adoption, only 22% of companies are considered truly future ready with their data infrastructure. More than half remain stuck with disconnected systems.
OPAQUE Background
OPAQUE Systems, founded in 2021 and born from UC Berkeley's RISELab, offers a cloud-based Confidential AI Platform for enterprise security and compliance teams. The company targets financial services, insurance, healthcare and high-tech sectors where security and compliance gate AI adoption.
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As organizations progress through various stages of AI maturity, platforms like OPAQUE aim to address the trust barriers that slow production deployment. Current customers and partners include ServiceNow, Anthropic, Encore Capital and Accenture.