Tel Aviv-based startup Lattica has raised US$3.25 million in pre-seed funding.

The round was led by Konstantin Lomashuk’s Cyber Fund, with support from angel investor Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon Network, and others.

Lattica focuses on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cryptographic method that enables secure AI computations without decrypting data.

Its proprietary Homomorphic Encryption Abstraction Layer (HEAL) is designed to standardize and improve FHE performance across different hardware.

Founded by Dr. Rotem Tsabary, an expert in lattice-based cryptography, Lattica aims to make FHE commercially viable, with initial focus on secure medical research and encrypted financial transactions.

🔗 Source: Lattica

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ FHE’s computational burden explains slow adoption despite its “holy grail” status

Lattica’s focus on hardware-software optimization addresses the core challenge that has kept FHE from widespread use despite being theoretically developed years ago.

FHE operations can be over a million times slower than their unencrypted equivalents, with a single cryptographic operation taking approximately 1 millisecond, creating significant performance barriers for real-world applications 1.

This computational intensity explains why, despite being called cryptography’s “holy grail,” FHE has remained largely theoretical until recent advances in hardware acceleration and optimization techniques 2.

The performance challenge stems from managing “noise” that accumulates during operations on encrypted data, requiring complex noise reduction techniques like bootstrapping that further slow processing 1.

Lattica’s approach of combining hardware acceleration with software optimization directly addresses these fundamental performance issues that have historically relegated FHE to research labs rather than commercial applications.

2️⃣ Healthcare’s slow AI adoption makes it an ideal target for privacy-preserving solutions

Healthcare represents a strategic focus for Lattica as the sector continues to lag in AI adoption despite clear potential benefits, largely due to data privacy concerns.

Only 1 in 1,850 healthcare job listings required AI skills according to Brookings research, highlighting the significant adoption gap compared to other industries 3.