Cinder, the AI trust and safety platform, has raised $41 million in Series B funding led by Radical Ventures. Cinder builds custom AI agents and a unified platform to enforce policies, automate content moderation, investigations, and enforcement against abuse, fraud, CSAM, NCII, and AI-powered threats at scale. The capital will support doubling headcount within 12 months and expanding its New York City headquarters.
AI Abuse Arms Race Intensifies
The timing comes amid surging generative AI content and regulatory pressure. Checkstep raised $4.5M, Besedo raised $18M, Two Hat raised $12M, and VerifyMy raised $8M according to competitor analysis. Cinder’s approach — agentic AI that learns continuously from human reviews and adapts to specific policies — addresses the gap in handling adversarial threats at enterprise scale.
Synthetic Threats Overwhelm Legacy Tools
Cinder protects over three billion end-users and processes 400 million events daily. Customers report 94% of human review automated and more than 90% reduction in CSAM/NCII vulnerability. Current solutions fall short against AI-generated deepfakes and scaled fraud because they rely on static classifiers rather than continuous-learning agents.
Agentic Workflows Replace Manual Review
Cinder deploys specialized AI agents for content moderation, case investigation, IP enforcement, and user fraud detection. The platform includes drag-and-drop workflows, human review loops, and integrations that allow policies to update in real time. Unlike competitors focused on detection alone, Cinder orchestrates end-to-end operations with measurable quality feedback.
"AI is already supercharging the efforts of bad actors to attack real people every day. We started Cinder to make sure the people defending the internet have more firepower than the people attacking it."
Mission Capital Validates AI Safety Thesis
Radical Ventures led the round with participation from Accel, Y Combinator, M12, PSP Growth, and Neuberger’s Outpost Ventures. Radical’s $650 million AI-focused fund and Accel’s track record in security infrastructure signal strong conviction in AI-native trust and safety as critical enterprise infrastructure.
Content Moderation Market Expands Rapidly
The content moderation services market stands at $9.65 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $22.78 billion by 2030 at a 13.4% CAGR. AI-generated abuse and Big Tech reductions in dedicated trust and safety teams are accelerating demand for specialized automation platforms. Cinder targets the fastest-growing segment: generative AI companies including OpenAI, Character.AI, and Black Forest Labs.
Ex-Intelligence Team Builds Defender Tools
Cinder was founded in 2022 by Glen Wise, former CIA cyber analyst and Facebook security engineer, and Phil Brennan, who previously ran US government counterterrorism units before Facebook. Their domain expertise in child exploitation and counter-terrorism directly informs the platform’s focus on emerging AI threats.
Scaling Headcount and NYC Presence
With the new funding, Cinder plans to double its 38-person team over the next year while opening or expanding its New York City headquarters. Recent customer wins include full trust and safety deployment at Wizz App and red-teaming success at Black Forest Labs.