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Playbook & Handbook · February 6, 2026
Winning Accelerator Playbook 2026 by BambuUP
EDTECH: LEVERAGING AI-POWERED TECHNOLOGIES TO TRANSFORM THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
1. Technology overview
Ciphero is a New York-based AI security company founded in 2025 by Saoud Khalifah (CEO), Rob Gross (COO) and Sen Tian (chief AI officer), who previously founded Fakespot. It provides an AI-native verification layer that captures, checks and governs AI interactions by both humans and agents.
Its product Orpheus verifies AI agent actions before they run, including AI Discovery, which inventories AI tools, agents, extensions, MCP servers and models on every machine. Verifiers check for prompt injection, malicious commands and secrets or PII, with plain-English policies in observe or block mode. Cassandra is a free read-only check for malicious extensions.
2. Highlighted features & specifications
- AI Discovery: inventories AI tools, agents, extensions, MCP servers and models.
- Verifiers: detect prompt injection, malicious commands, secrets and PII.
- Plain-English policies: applied to every action in observe or block mode.
- Logs and analyst: event logs plus a built-in analyst that writes incident reports.
- Governance: MCP and identity governance with audit trail and compliance reporting.
- Cassandra: free read-only check for malicious extensions.
3. Potential application
An IT outsourcing company governing AI coding agents used by developers. A bank preventing secrets and PII from reaching AI tools. A security team scanning endpoints for malicious AI extensions.
4. Benefits
Inventories shadow AI tools, agents and MCP servers on every machine.
Blocks or observes risky agent actions per team or per agent.
Requires no code changes and can go live quickly in observe mode.
Holds SOC 2 Type II certification.
5. Market trends & opportunities
Developers and employees adopt AI coding agents and extensions faster than security teams can inventory them, and supply chain attacks on such tools are growing. Vietnamese software and outsourcing firms using Claude Code or Cursor face this shadow AI exposure.
6. Other information
Founded 2025, New York-based per SecurityWeek (2025-12-19), which reported 2.5 million USD in funding. SOC 2 Type II stated on the website. Free Cassandra tool available; Enterprise tier pricing not listed.
