Disinformation is on the rise, making businesses just as susceptible to it as individuals, especially given the explosion in AI. Refute is a London-based startup that detects and responds to disinformation on behalf of these commercial organizations. It has now raised £2.3 million ($2.9 million) in a pre-seed round led by British investors Playfair and Episode 1.
There are many factors that facilitate disinformation attacks, including geopolitical instability and the use of generative AI to create misleading content.
More sophisticated campaigns, often created by state-sponsored or commercial competitors, focus on companies, their supply chains, and even top executives. This can have significant reputational and financial implications.
Tom Garnett, co-founder and CEO of Refute, told TechCrunch: However, these are generally passive tools designed for marketing purposes… In our experience, such signals are misleading due to high noise levels and ambiguous story origins. As a result, users lack the ability to understand and respond to threats in their entirety. ”
It's clear that this market is growing, with several startups targeting this market. Refute's competitors include Alethea (raised $30 million), Blackbird AI ($30.6 million), and Logically AI ($36.7 million).
However, Garnett argued: “We offer both the detection and response parts of the solution. This differentiates us in the market as other approaches focus primarily on detection.”
Refute uncovers disinformation campaigns by detecting the actions of adversary so-called “threat actors.”
Garnett began his career in national security at Detica and BAE Systems, building large-scale data analytics solutions to investigate criminal activity with a focus on terrorist attacks.
He realized that similar underlying technology could be used to combat criminal activity in the commercial sector, including cyber-attacks and financial crimes. Financial services, oil and gas, and government customers. ”
His co-founder, Vlad Gal, grew up in Romania in the 1980s and 1990s and experienced the threat of disinformation firsthand. He told TechCrunch: “I started building core internet infrastructure and services in Romania and Central and Eastern Europe…Building everything from scratch in an era of emerging technologies and limited legal frameworks meant that the platform and end This meant we needed to implement a defense-in-depth strategy against threats that targeted both the user and the user.
Notion Capital and Amadeus Capital Partners also participated in the round. Refute has also received angel investment from investors Charlie Songhurst, Carlos Espinal, James Chappell and Alastair Patterson.
Playfair Capital Principal Andrew Sheffield said in a statement: “The information landscape is changing. It's harder than ever to tell fact from fiction, and the cost of disseminating misleading content continues to fall…Tom and Vlad have more than 40 years of information.” Experience in data analysis, cybersecurity, tackling terrorist attacks, identity management, and money laundering. ”