Paula Tudoran

Thu, Jun 5, 2025, 5:31 AM3 min read

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has reportedly secretly completed the stealth acquisition of WhyLabs, a Seattle-based AI startup focused on real-time monitoring and security for artificial intelligence applications, GeekWire says.

Founded in 2019, WhyLabs was spun out of the Allen Institute for AI and gained traction with its observability platform, which was recently upgraded for real-time security monitoring of generative AI applications. GeekWire says that while no official announcement has been made, multiple signals across the web suggest the deal has closed.

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According to GeekWire, Perry Wu, former general partner at AI Fund, lists the company on his LinkedIn profile as “Acq by Apple.” Meanwhile, AI Fund itself, co-founded by Coursera's Andrew Ng, quietly updated WhyLabs' portfolio entry to read “was acquired in 2025.” Executives from both Apple and WhyLabs have yet to confirm the deal, but GeekWire says the clues continue to stack up.

WhyLabs was founded by a powerhouse team of AI experts. CEO Alessya Visnjic, an eight-year veteran at Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), co-founded the company with Andy Dang and Sam Gracie, both former Amazon engineers, as well as Maria Karaivanova, previously an executive at Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) and a principal at Madrona Venture Group, GeekWire says.

The startup gained early attention following its $10 million Series A round in 2021, co-led by Andrew Ng's AI Fund and Defy Partners. Other investors included Bezos Expeditions, the personal venture arm of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, along with Seattle's Ascend and Madrona Venture Group. That round valued the company at $37 million, according to PitchBook data cited by GeekWire.

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WhyLabs quickly carved out a niche as one of the few AI infrastructure startups focused on observability, a field that has become critical as companies race to deploy generative AI tools without exposing themselves to security risks or compliance failures. In April last year, WhyLabs announced it launched an upgraded version of its platform with real-time monitoring features tailored for large language models.