All analysis was generated autonomously, without human review. Scores are analytical opinions drawn from the cited public sources, without hands-on testing. They are not audits, certifications, investment reports, purchasing advice, or evaluations of quality.
This analysis is scoped to AQtive Guard.
The record a buyer can check on SandboxAQ's AQtive Guard is federal. The company has an agreement with the Department of War's chief information officer to deploy the platform, program work for the military agency DISA, and FedRAMP Ready status, an eligibility step toward federal cloud approval. The product finds an organization's cryptography by tracing what runs live in production, catching hidden algorithms and shadow keys that tools scanning stored files miss. Commercial proof is thinner. Telecom and enterprise names appear in SandboxAQ's statements rather than independent reporting. SandboxAQ has raised over 950 million dollars since leaving Alphabet to fund several business lines. Public sources do not disclose the cryptography line's sales separately.
| Description | AI and advanced-computing company whose AQtive Guard platform discovers an organization's cryptography through runtime tracing, manages certificates and keys, detects non-human-identity risk, and orchestrates the migration to post-quantum cryptography. | [f1] |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 | [f2] |
| HQ | Palo Alto, California | [f3] |
| Funding | $950M total | [f4] |
| Latest funding | Series E, over $450M (April 2025, about $5.75B valuation, new investors Google, NVIDIA, BNP Paribas, Ray Dalio) | [f2] |
| Product | What it does |
|---|---|
| AQtive Guard | Cryptography management platform that inventories certificates, keys, and algorithms via runtime tracing, scores crypto and non-human-identity risk, and orchestrates post-quantum migration. |
Cyber Defense Matrix
| Identify | Protect | Detect | Respond | Recover | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devices Workstations, servers, phones, tablets, storage, network devices, IoT infrastructure, and similar hardware. | |||||
| Applications Software, interactions, and application flows on the devices. | |||||
| Networks Connections and traffic flowing among devices and apps, plus communication paths. | |||||
| Data Content at rest, in transit, or in use across devices, apps, and networks. | |||||
| Users The people using the devices, apps, networks, and data. |
AQtive Guard inventories cryptography across networks, data in transit, and applications through runtime tracing and discovers non-human identities. SandboxAQ's cybersecurity line defends conventional cryptographic infrastructure and is mapped to the Cyber Defense Matrix. [f1]
How well the company can compete in its security market, scored across eight dimensions against public evidence.
| Dimension | Score |
|---|---|
| Problem Clarity How precisely the company defines its problem, with evidence the problem exists at the scale claimed. | 4/5 |
| Capability Depth How specific the technical capabilities are, with evidence beyond marketing claims such as docs, demos, and third-party validation. | 4/5 |
| Market Timing Whether the market is ready for this product, with evidence that buyers are actively seeking solutions. | 4/5 |
| Team Credibility Demonstrated domain expertise with public signals such as prior exits, publications, and industry recognition. | 4/5 |
| GTM Proof Evidence of actual traction (customers, revenue signals, partnerships) beyond stated intentions. | 4/5 |
| Funding Efficiency Whether funding matches go-to-market ambition, with signs of capital-efficient growth. | 3/5 |
| Category Clarity Whether the company creates or fits a recognizable category that buyers can quickly place in their stack. | 4/5 |
| Incumbent Defensibility How vulnerable the core value proposition is to absorption as a feature by a platform vendor. | 2/5 |
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A closer look at the company's product strategy, measuring how defensible it is against market forces and examining the eight areas behind it.
reinforce or reposition
| Dimension | Score |
|---|---|
| Value Delivery Does the product sell software as the product, or judgment, trust, or accountability with software as the delivery mechanism. | 1/3 |
| Switching Cost How expensive leaving is for a customer: data portability, integrations, learned workflows, network effects, regulatory data residency. | 2/3 |
| Compliance Moat Whether certifications, liability acceptance, or audit trails block an easy replacement. | 2/3 |
| Problem Complexity Whether the product requires ML, optimization, real-time systems, or years of specialized expertise. | 2/3 |
| Buyer Profile Whether buyers are SMB operators, mid-market IT teams, or regulated enterprises and governments with procurement gates. | 3/3 |
| Layer Whether the product is an end-user application, a platform with application features, or infrastructure other applications depend on. | 2/3 |
| Proprietary Data, Content, or IP Whether the product accumulates datasets, content licenses, or IP that a rival cannot recreate from scratch. | 1/3 |
Unlock the Full Analysis
The reasoning for the scores, the strategy deep dive, the business risks, and more. AI access comes with the purchase, so your AI tools can read the full profile too. You keep 12 months of access.
One-time purchase: $20 per profile.
UnlockReading several? Unlock the entire catalog.
| Id | Source | Tier | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| f1 | SandboxAQ AQtive Guard product page | official | 2026-06-21 |
| f2 | SandboxAQ: Closes $450M Series E Round | official | 2026-06-21 |
| f3 | PR Newswire: SandboxAQ Achieves FedRAMP Ready Status | press | 2026-06-21 |
| f4 | PYMNTS: SandboxAQ Raises $450 Million for Quantitative AI Platforms | press | 2026-06-21 |
| Id | Source | Tier | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| s1 | SandboxAQ AQtive Guard product page “Legacy PKI tools only see what they manage. AQtive Guard correlates data across code, runtime, and the network. Discover every managed certificate, hidden algorithm, and shadow key with zero manual effort.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s2 | PR Newswire: SandboxAQ Achieves FedRAMP Ready Status “AQtive Guard provides complete visibility, assessment, and remediation of critical vulnerabilities stemming from weak encryption and the rapid proliferation of AI agents and non-human identities (NHIs). ... the SOC 2 Type I report for AQtive Guard and the ISO/IEC 27001 certificate.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s3 | SandboxAQ: Redefines Cybersecurity with Unified Cryptography Management “integrations ... including Tanium, ServiceNow and others ... training cybersecurity teams at Accenture, Deloitte, EY and Carahsoft to deploy AQtive Guard ... affiliations with prominent industry consortiums such as NIST's NCCoE, the GSMA's PQTN, the Linux Foundation's PQCA, and MITRE's PQC.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s4 | SandboxAQ AQtive Guard product page (orchestration) “Certificate outages cost up to $9,000/minute. ... Confidently orchestrate safe key rotations, algorithm replacements, and PQC migrations without breaking production. ... Network analysis and runtime tracing reveal what's actively running in production.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s5 | The Quantum Insider: SandboxAQ Partners with DoW CIO “SandboxAQ is partnering with the Department of War (DoW) CIO to deploy its AQtive Guard platform for automated discovery and inventory of cryptographic assets ... builds on SandboxAQ's prior success with DISA Emerging Technology's QRC PKI program.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s6 | SandboxAQ: Closes $450M Series E Round with Expanded Investor Base “SandboxAQ ... announced the addition of Ray Dalio, Horizon Kinetics, BNP Paribas, Google, and NVIDIA to its Series E funding round, which raised over $450 million. Since spinning out from Alphabet in 2022, SandboxAQ has raised over $950 million.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s7 | PYMNTS: SandboxAQ Raises $450 Million for Quantitative AI Platforms “Since spinning out from Alphabet in 2022, the company has raised over $950 million, SandboxAQ said in a Friday (April 4) press release.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s8 | NIST NCCoE: Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography consortium “Organizations participating in this project ... signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate with NIST in a consortium to build this example solution. ... SandboxAQ” | research | 2026-06-30 |
| s9 | FedRAMP Marketplace: AQtive Guard listing FR260215856 “SandboxAQ AQtive Guard Package ID FR260215856 ... Status ... FedRAMP Ready ... Certification Class ... Class C (Moderate)” | regulatory | 2026-06-30 |
| Id | Source | Tier | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| s1 | SandboxAQ AQtive Guard product page “Legacy PKI tools only see what they manage. AQtive Guard correlates data across code, runtime, and the network. Discover every managed certificate, hidden algorithm, and shadow key with zero manual effort.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s2 | PR Newswire: SandboxAQ Achieves FedRAMP Ready Status “SandboxAQ ... has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Ready status ... AQtive Guard provides ... remediation of critical vulnerabilities stemming from weak encryption and ... non-human identities (NHIs) ... the SOC 2 Type I report and the ISO/IEC 27001 certificate.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s3 | SandboxAQ: Redefines Cybersecurity with Unified Cryptography Management “single sign-on integration, audit logging, horizontal scaling, high availability ... integrations ... including Tanium, ServiceNow ... teams at Accenture, Deloitte, EY and Carahsoft ... affiliations with ... NIST's NCCoE, the GSMA's PQTN, the Linux Foundation's PQCA, and MITRE's PQC Coalition.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s4 | SandboxAQ AQtive Guard product page (orchestration) “Certificate outages cost up to $9,000/minute. ... Confidently orchestrate safe key rotations, algorithm replacements, and PQC migrations without breaking production. ... Network analysis and runtime tracing reveal what's actively running in production.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s5 | The Quantum Insider: SandboxAQ Partners with DoW CIO “SandboxAQ is partnering with the Department of War (DoW) CIO to deploy its AQtive Guard platform for automated discovery and inventory of cryptographic assets ... builds on SandboxAQ's prior success with DISA Emerging Technology's QRC PKI program.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s6 | SandboxAQ: Closes $450M Series E Round with Expanded Investor Base “SandboxAQ ... announced the addition of Ray Dalio, Horizon Kinetics, BNP Paribas, Google, and NVIDIA to its Series E ... Since spinning out from Alphabet in 2022, SandboxAQ has raised over $950 million ... across biopharma, chemistry, materials science, cybersecurity, and financial services.” | official | 2026-06-21 |
| s7 | PYMNTS: SandboxAQ Raises $450 Million for Quantitative AI Platforms “Since spinning out from Alphabet in 2022, the company has raised over $950 million, SandboxAQ said in a Friday (April 4) press release.” | press | 2026-06-21 |
| s8 | NIST NCCoE: Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography consortium “Organizations participating in this project ... signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to collaborate with NIST in a consortium to build this example solution. ... SandboxAQ” | research | 2026-06-30 |
| s9 | FedRAMP Marketplace: AQtive Guard listing FR260215856 “SandboxAQ AQtive Guard Package ID FR260215856 ... Status ... FedRAMP Ready ... Certification Class ... Class C (Moderate)” | regulatory | 2026-06-30 |
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