Openlayer, the inventor of the world’s most comprehensive AI testing platform, announced today the completion of a $4.8 million seed round. The cash will be used to grow the company’s employees and improve the platform’s capabilities so that it can handle more machine learning (ML) activities.
Startups and Fortune 500 businesses are already utilizing Openlayer to test and validate their machine learning models, identify unanticipated errors, and diagnose why and when they occur.
As machine learning becomes more popular and accessible, it’s vital that we put the proper safeguards in place to prevent models from invading the real world. Rather than being an afterthought, testing should be an integral part of building ML models from the start, said Rishab Ramanathan, co-founder of Openlayer.
The only way to meaningfully align models with human interests is through test-driven development.To do this in a repeatable manner, a platform that makes battle-tested models a reality is required.
The founding team of Openlayer is made up of former Apple ML engineers who have firsthand expertise implementing AI at scale. An ex-Amazon engineer and a Harvard Design Engineering school graduate are among the company’s other members.
Over the course of our time at Apple, we faced the same problem over and over: there is no standardized way to test and collaborate on machine learning models, said Vikas Nair, co-founder of Openlayer. As a result, errors are frequently not discovered until after shipping, which can have potentially disastrous consequences.
While there are numerous software testing platforms available, they are designed for deterministic systems in which a given input produces an expected output. Because ML models are probabilistic, there has been no reliable way to test them until now.
Openlayer is a machine learning validation and testing platform that allows teams to detect, diagnose, and rectify model problems in real time.
Openlayer distinguishes itself by making it easier to spot mistakes before models go into production and then monitor performance over time, effectively introducing observability to every level of development. CB Insights will include Openlayer in its annual AI 100 list in May 2022.
