Almure, a Japanese startup developing security infrastructure for AI agents, announced on April 15 that it had secured 200 million yen (approximately $1.25 million) in a seed round.
The company was founded in January 2026. Atsuki Momose serves as representative director and CEO. The day before Almure’s seed round announcement, on April 14, Acompany—where Momose serves as executive officer and chief research officer (CRO)— also announced debt financing of 960 million yen (approximately $6 million). This article focuses on Almure.
Joint Research With Keio University Also Announced
Almure is developing a system to maintain data security while AI agents are actively processing information.
Current AI agent security relies on encryption during data transmission and storage, providing a baseline level of confidentiality. The challenge lies with data that is actively being processed. Strengthening security at that stage tends to impede the AI’s performance, while relaxing it introduces the risk of interception and other breaches.
The technology Almure is turning to in order to secure data during processing is confidential computing. Confidential computing isolates and encrypts the execution environment at the hardware level, enabling data to be processed in a state inaccessible to cloud providers and system administrators alike.
Almure’s Momose earned a master’s degree from Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Informatics, then conducted research on cryptography and security at Secom IS Laboratory, a dedicated information security research institute. He subsequently studied at the University of Illinois. In short, he brings a career built squarely on cryptography and computing.
As noted above, Almure is still a very young company. Nevertheless, on the same day as the seed round announcement, Almure also revealed the start of a joint research initiative with Keio University. The collaboration will focus on confidential computing research alongside the laboratory of Professor Kenji Kono.
Investors Include LPs Affiliated With Tokai Tokyo Securities
The seed round saw participation from three venture capital firms: Genesia Ventures, Dual Bridge Capital, and NEX-T Tokai Innovation Fund (Tokai Tokyo Securities and others).
The funds will be used for research and development and product development.
Almure’s Momose CEO commented:
“Advanced security technology can too easily end up delivering only incremental industrial value. By working backward from the practical goal of regulatory compliance and designing from the core technology up, we convert its fundamental significance into genuine customer value. With the capital raised and the support of our new partners, we will accelerate that effort.”
