Silmaril
Spring 2026 NewPrompt injection defense that is self-healing
Silmaril is a self-healing app-layer prompt injection defense for AI native applications and agents. It understands application context to block 2x as many threats as current SOTA defenses with 10x lower latency. Customers plug us into agentic frameworks like LangGraph with 5 lines of code. Silmaril has stopped $28M of damages for customers.
AI Investor Summary
Silmaril offers a self-healing app-layer prompt injection defense for AI-native applications, boasting 2x better threat blocking and 10x lower latency than current solutions. Led by a founder with deep AI security expertise and a track record at major tech companies, the company has already prevented $28M in damages, addressing a critical and rapidly growing market need.
Key Highlights
- ● Exceptional technical founder with proven ability to find critical AI exploits and experience at top tech companies (Amazon, Google, Meta) and top universities (Stanford, Berkeley).
- ● Significant demonstrated impact by stopping $28M in damages for customers.
- ● Addresses a critical and rapidly growing market need for AI security.
- ● Simple integration ('5 lines of code') for developers.
Risk Factors
- ● Team size of two may be a bottleneck for scaling development and go-to-market efforts.
- ● Traction metrics beyond 'damages stopped' are not detailed, making it hard to gauge commercial momentum.
- ● The long-term defensibility of the 'self-healing' technology needs further validation.
- ● The competitive landscape is rapidly evolving, with new AI security solutions emerging frequently.
Founders
Aum Upadhyay is the co-founder of Silmaril, a Y Combinator-backed startup focused on AI-powered code generation. Prior to Silmaril, he has a background in software engineering and has contributed to various projects, demonstrating expertise in building and scaling technical solutions.
Co-Founder & CTO at Silmaril, the world's first self-healing prompt injection defense. I prove the risks are real by finding exploits myself. I chained a prompt injection into root access inside ChatGPT. Ex-Amazon tech lead specializing in low latency ML models that generated $400M in annual revenue.
Score Breakdown
Eduardo Velasco's background is exceptional, with direct experience at Amazon (scaling low-latency ML models generating significant revenue), Google, and Meta, coupled with a Stanford MS and Berkeley BS. His demonstrated ability to find critical prompt injection exploits (ChatGPT root access) provides strong domain expertise and founder-market fit. Aum Upadhyay's YC backing and software engineering experience are solid, though less distinguished than Eduardo's. The combination is strong, with one truly standout technical founder. [Boost +1: Founder from Google]
The AI security market, specifically prompt injection defense, is experiencing explosive growth driven by the rapid adoption of AI agents and LLMs. The TAM is enormous as virtually every AI-native application is vulnerable. The timing is critical, as these vulnerabilities are being discovered and exploited in real-time. Regulatory tailwinds are likely to emerge as AI becomes more integrated into critical infrastructure. Competition is emerging, but Silmaril's focus on self-healing and context-awareness offers differentiation. [Boost +0.5: Hot sector: defense]
The product's core technical differentiation lies in its self-healing capability and understanding of application context, which claims to offer superior performance (2x threat blocking, 10x lower latency) over SOTA defenses. The ease of integration ('5 lines of code') is a significant UX win for developers. The defensibility/moat is still developing; the self-healing aspect is promising, but the underlying technology needs to be deeply understood to assess its long-term defensibility. Platform potential is high if it can become a standard security layer for agentic frameworks.
The company has stopped $28M in damages, which is a very strong indicator of value and effectiveness, especially for an early-stage company. However, specific revenue figures, user growth rates, and concrete partnership details are not provided, making it difficult to assess the scale and velocity of their commercial traction beyond the damage averted. The YC backing and positive press are good early signals. [Boost +2: Tier-1 VC: accel]
News
This GitHub comparison shows recent code changes and updates to the Silmaril project, indicating ongoing development and potential new features or fixes.
Silmaril was launched as a self-healing app-layer prompt injection defense for AI-native applications and agents.
A user profile or author page on iphones.ru associated with the name Silmaril, indicating a presence in content creation or community interaction.
Silmaril, an AppliedAI company, has launched its generative AI solution to simplify and digitize complex business processes, particularly for companies in highly regulated sectors, by organizing and analyzing large datasets.
Silmaril Analytics provides business intelligence and data engineering tools that integrate with messaging platforms like Slack and Teams, allowing users to query data warehouses and build pipelines using natural language.
Silmaril offers a self-healing app-layer prompt injection defense for AI-native applications and agents, designed to block threats with low latency by understanding application context.
Quick Info
- Batch
- Spring 2026
- Team Size
- 2
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Founders
- 2
- Scraped
- 4/10/2026