Alcion Joins Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Venture Network as an Inaugural Startup Partner

Alcion is thrilled to announce our participation in Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Venture Network as an inaugural Startup Partner. CyLab, a leading institute at CMU, is renowned for its cutting-edge research in security and privacy. Its researchers push the boundaries in crucial areas such as fully autonomous cyber systems that proactively detect new threats and secure-by-design systems that prioritize security both now and in the future. CyLab’s interdisciplinary approach emphasizes the importance of human factors alongside innovative algorithms and protocols in security systems. Joining forces with CyLab in this venture is a natural fit for Alcion, as we share their mission and values.

At Alcion, we are rebuilding a modern cloud-native data protection platform from the ground up. Our platform is designed for efficient data backups at scale and leverages AI across multiple components, including intelligent backups, compliance scoring, and ransomware detection. Additionally, it features an intuitive UI that is user-friendly and enjoyable to use. Today, a significant challenge in our industry is scaling infrastructure to secure the ever-growing volumes of data while continuously assessing security threats in a cost-effective manner and making the results accessible to users who may not be security experts.

Alcion uniquely combines solutions from different academic disciplines into one coherent, user-friendly product. For instance:

• Scalable Backups with efficient incremental storage processing algorithms.
• AI for Ransomware Detection that utilizes continuous, unsupervised machine learning with interpretable results and reacts quickly to emerging threats.
• Usable security ensures the product is intuitive and accessible, even to those who are not security experts.  

CMU and CyLab have made significant contributions in each these areas, which align with our mission at Alcion and we know we will learn from our shared experiences.

Several members of our leadership team, including co-founders Niraj Tolia and Vaibhav Kamra, are proud alumni of CMU and embody its supportive and nurturing culture recognized worldwide. Joining this network allows us to learn from and give back to the CMU community, reinforcing our commitment to advancing security technologies together.