Hardshell was featured in Technical.ly's coverage of this month's Accelerate Breakfast, where co-founder and CEO Andrew Schoka pitched the company's AI data security platform to investors alongside four other startups from across the DMV region.
The article, "5 founders betting they can serve both the private sector and the US government," examines how founders across the region are adopting a dual-use strategy, building commercial revenue while pursuing federal customers. Reporter Kaela Roeder highlighted Hardshell's approach to securing the data layer of enterprise AI: "Approaches like AI guardrails … they're important, but they don't actually address the root causes," Schoka told the crowd. "We help organizations use AI safely with the data that matters most."
The Accelerate Breakfast is a quarterly founder-investor event hosted by George Mason University in Northern Virginia. The July event featured Hardshell alongside Cachai, JuneBrain, Pivvot Space, and PerVista AI, with an investor panel that included New Dominion Angels, Booz Allen Ventures, and 100KM Ventures.