Lockheed Martin’s arm for backing tech startups has been part of the investor network behind CalypsoAI, which designs its technology to offer a layered defense from data theft and other types of attacks. F5 Networks has agreed to pay $180 million in cash to acquire CalypsoAI, a startup founded in 2018 to develop software that secures artificial intelligence systems and applications.
CalypsoAI designs its threat defense and other security products to create an “inference perimeter,” which it describes as a layer for protecting AI systems from attacks such as data theft or inputs that override instructions from an agent.
CalypsoAI has fetched $40 million in venture backing from investors since its inception, including from Lockheed Martin’s arm for investing in tech startups. Lockheed Martin Ventures first entered the investment in 2020 and participated in a $23 million Series A-1 round that closed in 2023.
In its acquisition announcement Thursday, F5 said it is looking to offer enterprises more adaptive AI security offerings that work across different cloud environments and provide operators more unified visibility into their networks.
“AI is redefining enterprise architecture — and the attack surface companies must defend,” F5’s CEO François Locoh-Donou said in a release. “Traditional firewalls and point solutions can’t keep up. The addition of CalypsoAI will give enterprises the confidence to innovate faster and better protect critical data as they rely on F5 to deliver and secure apps, APIs, and AI models across their environment.”
F5 plans to incorporate CalypsoAI’s offerings for real-time threat defense, red teaming at scale and data security into a larger application delivery and security portfolio.
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